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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26867278">One For All</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/BabyStepsAreStillSteps/pseuds/BabyStepsAreStillSteps'>BabyStepsAreStillSteps</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Chernobyl (TV 2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Ending, Because these people deserved a happy ending!, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of Ulana, because she’s awesome</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 18:48:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>35,582</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26867278</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/BabyStepsAreStillSteps/pseuds/BabyStepsAreStillSteps</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>How would things have changed if Valery had been called back to Moscow instead of staying at Chernobyl for duration? </p><p>The stress level of everyone involved skyrockets and new friendships are discovered, but in the end, it changed both nothing and everything.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Andrei Glukhov &amp; Valery Legasov, Boris Shcherbina &amp; Everyone, Valery Legasov &amp; Boris Shcherbina, Valery Legasov &amp; Boris Shcherbina &amp; Andrei Glukhov &amp; Vladimir Pikalov, Valery Legasov &amp; Everyone</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. May 7, 1986</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Summer_Meadows/gifts">Summer_Meadows</a>.</li>



    </ul><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hello everyone, thank you for reading! I'd like to preface this with a disclaimer that I unfortunately am not overly familiar with the inner workings of the Soviet Union, so I'm sure I've accidentally misrepresented some of the reactions, please don't take any of this as historically accurate.</p><p>I’m also not a physicist, so please excuse any inaccuracies in the science. </p><p>I hope you enjoy the chapter!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The morning of May seventh dawned dreary and overcast, but warm enough that Valery could work on his pages and pages of calculations outside in the bleak sunlight, setting up a table to work at against a wall of the main compound where he could be easily found if something went wrong, as tended to happen on a daily basis since April twenty-sixth.</p><p> </p><p>He had been at the table since the dawn, nodding polite greetings to the miners and soldiers who walked by when he wasn't buried in a calculation. He had been up all night, long before he moved outside, but he had finally found the answer he needed.</p><p> </p><p>He had notified Boris he had found a solution and carefully laid the paper aside for when Boris returned to the compound after his meeting with the mining suppliers.</p><p> </p><p>Finding the solution had brought a wave of relief, but it wasn't the only problem left to solve, so he had diligently moved on to the next challenge they faced. There was always a new problem to solve at Chernobyl.</p><p> </p><p>/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/</p><p> </p><p>Boris sighed, giving himself a short, thirty second break before he got out of his car and found Valery to hear the solution the scientist promised he had found.</p><p> </p><p>The meeting with the suppliers had gone well, but as with most meetings, it was more tiring than it needed to be. In the end, it had been a success, though, and that was all that mattered.</p><p> </p><p>He let out one more exhausted sigh before he rebuilt his persona of confident authority, and pulled himself out of the car, walking further into the camp they had set up around the power plant.</p><p> </p><p>He felt a small smile twitch on his lips as he spotted the scientist tucked behind a table against the wall, pouring over still more pages of calculations and equations.</p><p> </p><p>Boris shook his head as he walked closer. On occasion, after particularly compelling examples of the scientist’s awkward, underdeveloped social skills, Boris forgot just how brilliant the man was.</p><p> </p><p>The scientist was remarkably good at breaking down nuclear physics in a way Boris could understand, which was impressive on its own, but Boris was never so aware of how smart his friend was as when he was lost in his own world of science, complicated equations flying across the page without pause or hesitation.</p><p> </p><p>"We will have the additional supplies the miners need by tomorrow afternoon," Boris announced as he got closer, foregoing a greeting and moving straight to the information Valery would be more interested in.</p><p> </p><p>"Excellent," Valery breathed, sounding relieved as he looked up at Boris, sending him a small, rare smile. "Well <em>done</em>, Deputy Chairman."</p><p> </p><p>"Deputy Chairman?" Boris repeated, unimpressed, and the scientist shot him a quick, impish smile before he turned back to his equations.</p><p> </p><p>"You did tell me not to use your name...," he reminded Boris innocently.</p><p> </p><p>Boris let out a huff of exasperated laughter, rolling his eyes dramatically before returning his light scowl to his friend.</p><p> </p><p>"Really, Valery?" he asked. "You're still holding that against me? It was almost two weeks ago, let it go."</p><p> </p><p>"Sorry, Boris," Valery apologized with an amused huff. One of these days, Boris was going to get a full laugh out of the man, he was determined and getting closer, but first he needed the solution Valery had found.</p><p> </p><p>"I am told I am slightly ornery when I am tired," Valery continued, oblivious to Boris' reaffirmed life goal.</p><p> </p><p>Boris chuckled, shaking his head at his friend.</p><p> </p><p>"Well -," he started, but he was cut off by the arrival of three large military vehicles pulling into camp.</p><p> </p><p>He, and everyone else in the compound, studied them curiously, watching as they parked just inside the large, open area of the central compound.</p><p> </p><p>More than a dozen men streamed out of the vehicles, but the one that Boris was most interested in was the Colonel that stepped out of the center truck. He was the only one among them who did not carry a rifle, and he had an unmistakable air of authority.</p><p> </p><p>He noticed Boris and Valery on the far side of the compound and walked closer.</p><p> </p><p>"Comrade Legasov?" the man asked, and the scientist looked up in surprise, nodding his head.</p><p> </p><p>"Hello, Comrade," the Colonel said, watching as Valery hesitantly stood and walked toward him with a questioning look on his face. "I have orders to bring you to Moscow."</p><p> </p><p>"What?" Valery gasped, leaning back slightly as his eyes widened in alarm. "Why?"</p><p> </p><p>"You are needed," the Colonel repeated firmly by way of explanation. "You are needed for several meetings, among other things."</p><p> </p><p>"Meetings?" Valery gaped, and Boris edged forward, a feeling of panic rising in his chest. How would they possibly be able to do this without Valery?</p><p> </p><p>"Yes," the Colonel said. "You are required for meetings, and your protection."</p><p> </p><p>"My protection?" Valery echoed in confusion.</p><p> </p><p>"Putting this heat shield in is not without risk," the Colonel pointed out firmly. "You could die, comrade."</p><p> </p><p>“That is all the more reason I should stay! I made these decisions, I need to live or die by them," Valery insisted, confident and eloquent in the way he only ever was when he stood up to dangerous men in the name of science and his comrades' protection. “<em>I</em> was the one who made this plan, <em>I</em> must be the one who bears the consequences."</p><p> </p><p>Valery didn’t seem to notice the crowd that had gathered, too intent on pleading his case, but Boris did.</p><p> </p><p>Around the camp, more and more people noticed the commotion, walking over to surround the two arguing men. Within a few minutes, every miner and soldier not actively on duty were watching the fight, carefully taking in every word.</p><p> </p><p>Boris could have ordered them to disperse. Were he any of the man he had been a month ago, he would have. He would have ordered them back to their stations, ordered them not to listen to the debate but to trust their orders, he would have immediately brought it to the Colonel's attention.</p><p> </p><p>Instead, he met Glukhov’s challenging look with an accepting nod, shifting to the side so the miner next to him could join the growing circle.</p><p> </p><p>Glukhov's expression flashed through shock and surprise before it fell into an approving smile, sending Boris a firm nod before returning his attention to the fight before him.</p><p> </p><p>"We cannot risk your mind being lost, you may die," the Colonel reiterated, not budging at all.</p><p> </p><p>“I am already dead!" Valery exploded, waving an arm around him to make his point. "I’ve been dead for weeks, my body just hasn’t received the update yet!</p><p> </p><p>I’ve been dead since the moment I stepped foot here. I flew over the roof in an unprotected helicopter, I did the initial recon. I spent the first week with no protective clothing or mask, my trailer is almost touching the building. It averages at fifteen Roentgen at any given moment.</p><p> </p><p>I was the one who did the first and second assessments, flying around the roof for an hour without shielding or mask, breathing in the radioactive smoke. We couldn't wait, the <em>world</em> could not afford to wait until masks and shielding could arrive, so we went up without. I have been dead for weeks, Colonel, please let me keep everyone here from being the same.</p><p> </p><p>I am already dead, at least let me make it <em>mean</em> something by saving these people. <em>Please</em>. These miners, these soldiers, these men are protecting all of the Union through their valiant efforts, they protect everyone, I am here to protect them. Someone has to protect them while they protect everyone else, please let me stay.”</p><p> </p><p>“I cannot do that, comrade," the Colonel shook his head, "you are needed in Moscow.”</p><p> </p><p>“I am needed <em>here</em>,” Valery insisted, completely oblivious to the expressions of awe and slight hero-worship growing on the faces of the men around him. “Here, where every second of reaction time counts! I have been here since the beginning, I <em>understand</em> what is happening.</p><p> </p><p>These men, they are experts at their craft, but their craft is not nuclear physics! They cannot he expected to make decisions that will save or murder the entire continent!</p><p> </p><p>I am needed <em>here</em>, comrade, there is nothing in the world that could possibly be more important than what I am doing here. I will call into any meeting you require, but I must stay. I must fix this wrong, I must save these men, I must stay here.”</p><p> </p><p>“You will not,” the soldier said firmly. “We do not expect them to make decisions, we are sending them a replacement scientist.”</p><p> </p><p>“Ulana Khomyuk?” Valery asked, relaxing as his shoulders slumped in relief.</p><p> </p><p>Boris noted with a hint of amusement that the miners followed the scientist's lead, tension easing slightly as they all noticeably relaxed as well.</p><p> </p><p>“Ivan Fedorov,” the soldier answered, and Valery’s panic redoubled.</p><p> </p><p>“No!” he gasped, eyes wide and panicked.</p><p> </p><p>Around the pair, the miners tensed, instantly accepting Valery’s assessment of the man.</p><p> </p><p>“No,” Valery begged, “please. Please do not send him! Please send Khomyuk, I beg you. She is an expert in her field, she is completely up to date on the site, and she has a truly remarkable command of nuclear physics.</p><p> </p><p>I have worked with Fedorov, I went to school with him, he is an imbecile! He barely scraped through even the most basic of our classes, his only goal was to acquire the background he needed to become chair of the Nuclear Energy Commission, he does not understand the <em>science</em>, he only understands the <em>power</em> that comes with a nuclear power plant.”</p><p> </p><p>“Have care how you speak of Comrade Fedorov,” the Colonel said, clear warning in his voice that Valery completely ignored.</p><p> </p><p>Were the situation not so serious, Boris would have found Valery's complete and utter inability to stay in his place amusing, but the disrespect to a Colonel had Boris tensing, worried for his impudent friend.</p><p> </p><p>"No,” Valery insisted, “no, I cannot, not when he will endanger the lives of <em>my people</em>! These men, every single one of the men here, they are <em>my</em> responsibility!</p><p> </p><p><em> I </em>  brought them here, <em>I</em> was the one that demanded they be brought in, <em>I</em> was the one that put them in danger, I <em>must</em> protect them!”</p><p> </p><p>“The only thing you <em>must</em> do is protect the State and follow orders,” the Colonel said sharply.</p><p> </p><p>“I am protecting the State!” Valery said desperately. “By staying, by helping, I am protecting the State! These men <em>are</em> the State! The hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children that will die within a month if this reactor eats through the concrete <em>are</em> the State! The millions of comrades who will not die agonizing deaths if we can fix this <em>are</em> the State and I am <em>trying</em> to protect them!”</p><p> </p><p>“You think you know more than Comrade Gorbachev?” the Colonel asked dangerously.</p><p> </p><p>“About Chernobyl?” Valery asked, slightly hysterically. “Yes! I do! Because I’ve been here, because I’ve made these decisions, and I will save everyone here or die trying!”</p><p> </p><p>“You will <em>not</em>,” the Colonel said severely.</p><p> </p><p>“Even if Fedorov were everything you think he is, it will take him days, <em>weeks</em> to catch up, to understand,” Valery said, switching tactics. “That is time these men and all of the Soviet Union cannot afford!”</p><p> </p><p>"Comrade Fedorov has been briefed," the Colonel said dangerously, his patience fraying further by the second.</p><p> </p><p>"By <em>who</em>?" Valery demanded. "Not by me, not by Boris, not by General Pikalov, the three people who have <em>been here</em> since day one! We are the only three on the <em>planet</em> who have a complete understanding of what has happened since the explosion, because <em>all three of us</em> have been here since that day! We were called in less than twenty-four hours after the event, and we have not truly left since!</p><p> </p><p>Ulana Khomyuk is the only other person who could truly give a briefing on the situation to the standard the head nuclear physicist in charge of making all future decisions would need! If the briefing was not given by one of us four, it is useless!"</p><p> </p><p>"He has been briefed," the Colonel repeated, his tone low and lethal.</p><p> </p><p>"Even if he has had the most comprehensive briefing the world could offer, he has not <em>been here</em>," Valery said, his eyes pleading with the Colonel to understand. "At least let me stay long enough to explain things to him personally, let me show him the instruments, introduce him to the men, teach him all I have learned about the problems we face."</p><p> </p><p>"No," the Colonel said, stepping forward decisively and grabbing Valery's wrist, dragging him forward a step. "You will come, and you will <em>follow orders</em>."</p><p> </p><p>"Wait," someone said, and Boris realized a second later it had been himself.</p><p> </p><p>"Wait," he repeated, stepping forward, striding up to the two men and hoping he could rein in his mounting panic long enough to insert diplomatic reasoning why they could <em>not</em> take his scientist.</p><p> </p><p>"Sir," he started, calmly and respectfully, shooting Valery a look that the scientist immediately understood as an order to follow Boris' lead and try a calmer, more diplomatic approach. His friend did so, taking a deep breath and visibly trying to calm down.</p><p> </p><p>"Colonel," Boris started respectfully, looking the man in his eye and sudden recognition slammed into him. He had seen this man's picture in the Kremlin's recognition announcement before.</p><p> </p><p>"Colonel Kalashnik, please excuse my comrade, he is exhausted. Comrade Valery worked all night last night running and checking hundreds of calculations to ensure the safety of the miners who will reach a critical point in their work tomorrow. He is exhausted and stressed, he did not mean any disrespect, he only strives to protect the Union."</p><p> </p><p>The Colonel's anger cooled slightly, his grip on Valery's wrist loosening marginally so Boris no longer feared he would break his friend's bones by sheer strength of grip.</p><p> </p><p>"He did not mean any disrespect," Boris reiterated, feeling himself edge into dangerous territory. Valery was a terrible influence on him. "He should have stated them respectfully, but a few of his concerns are valid.</p><p> </p><p>I do feel that Comrade Gorbachev leads many important projects, and he may not be aware of a few specific details regarding our effort in particular. How could he? It is not his responsibility to make the decisions of a nuclear physicist, he delegated that effort to myself and my comrade so he could protect our State in other, more pressing matters."</p><p> </p><p>Boris shot a pre-emptive look at Valery, knowing he would bristle at the statement, and the man subsided reluctantly.</p><p> </p><p>"My comrade will of course take care to speak more respectfully in the future," Boris went on soothingly, "but he does express several valid concerns I am not certain our superiors in Moscow are aware of, and I would like to bring them to your attention if you will allow it."</p><p> </p><p>The Colonel studied his face, and Boris held his breath as he waited for the answer. Around him, he could feel the crowd, frozen and still and tense, waiting to see if he would be able to save them.</p><p> </p><p>"What concerns?" Kalashnik asked simply, his eyes warning Boris he was on thin ice, and Boris let out a breath of relief.</p><p> </p><p>"The first concern is that Comrade Valery is correct, although we mean no disrespect to Comrade Ivan Fedorov," Boris hurried on before the Colonel could interject. "I am sure Comrade Fedorov is an excellent scientist and an excellent comrade, under any other circumstance, he would be an excellent choice.</p><p> </p><p>However," he went on, sending a quick, quelling glare at his friend when he opened his mouth to protest, "we are not facing a nuclear meltdown or a plant malfunction. We are not facing anything he, or any other nuclear physicist, have been trained to correct.</p><p> </p><p>This situation, what happened here at Chernobyl, has <em>never</em> happened before. Every day is full of new, never before seen problems. These problems and solutions are a constant dance. A new problem arises, and the standard way to solve it no longer applies because of a solution implemented weeks ago to combat a previous challenge.</p><p> </p><p>Bringing another scientist in isn't as simple as listing what actions we have taken and allowing their education to fill in the rest, everything about this situation, every single day since the explosion has been brand new, never before seen problems and solutions, and it would be unfair to Comrade Fedorov to ask him to shoulder this responsibility with no training or guidance.</p><p> </p><p>May I respectfully request that Comrade Valery stay on site for one more week to fully brief Comrade Fedorov on everything that has happened? He can make the time to call in to any meeting needed, give any update or briefing required of him, but we protect the State as we work together to save our comrades."</p><p> </p><p>Colonel Kalashnik considered that for a long moment, looking between Boris and Valery thoughtfully.</p><p> </p><p>"No," he eventually decided, and Boris felt the ground sway beneath his feet. "I have orders. I will pass on the concerns you raised, but I have orders and I will follow them."</p><p> </p><p>"But wait," Boris cut in desperately before the Colonel gave the order to move out, "that was only my first concern!”</p><p> </p><p>“I will hear your others when I call you from Moscow,” Kalashnik decreed, sending Boris a hard look before turning to the waiting trucks.</p><p> </p><p>Boris took a deep breath and for the first time in his life, he did not bend to the pressure of the implication.</p><p> </p><p>“I would be happy to reiterate them when you are in Moscow, but with all due respect I believe you need to hear them now,” Boris said, firm and unyielding, and the entire compound went completely silent.</p><p> </p><p>The Colonel slowly turned back to face him, the previously veiled warning now blatant in his eyes.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, do you?” he asked, quiet and deadly, but Boris didn’t let himself cave to the fear that tone incited.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes,” he said firmly. “Thank you for taking the time to listen. My second concern is that we have not been informed when Comrade Fedorov will be arriving, but you are taking Valery now. I am not a scientist. General Pikalov is not a scientist. None of the men in this camp are nuclear scientists.</p><p> </p><p>We <em>need</em> him. Things go wrong every single day, in the blink of an eye, and Valery Legasov is the man who fixes them.</p><p> </p><p><em> He </em>  is the one that comes up with the solution that averts disaster, <em>he</em> is the one that makes the suggestions of what will keep our boys safe. We <em>need</em> him.”</p><p> </p><p>“Fedorov will be here by end of day tomorrow,” Kalashnik said, flapping the hand not holding Valery’s wrist carelessly to the side. “Then you will have a scientist.”</p><p> </p><p>"We do not need <em>a scientist</em>," Boris shot back, more brash than he had ever been in his life, "we need <em>Valery</em>. We <em>need</em> him, we <em>cannot</em> do this without him!</p><p> </p><p><em> He </em>is the brains behind every single decision on this base! The only things I know of nuclear physics are what he has taught me! <em>End</em> of day tomorrow will be too late! The critical point will be hit tomorrow morning!</p><p> </p><p>I cannot send these men in unprepared for what they will be facing, and I don’t <em>know</em>what they will be facing because I am not a scientist, but I <em>do</em> know that if we <em>don’t</em>successfully triumph tomorrow the heat <em>will</em> eat through the concrete pad and it <em>will</em>allow <em>nuclear waste</em> to seep into the ground water which will then flow into each river until it flows all the way to the Black Sea and it will poison the <em>entire</em> <em>continent</em>! If it gets through that concrete there will be nothing we can do to stop it.</p><p> </p><p>Please, please, Colonel, we <em>need</em> him. All of the Soviet Union <em>needs</em> him, please, you cannot take him."</p><p> </p><p>"The Kremlin has made a decision and I will enact it. The State knows better than the likes of <em>you</em> and my superiors will hear of your insubordination," the Colonel said threateningly.</p><p> </p><p>"Yes," Boris nodded eagerly, "yes, what if <em>I</em> went in his stead? I am aware of what has happened here, I can pass on the information, and I can answer for my disrespect directly. Take me instead of Valery, let him train Fedorov."</p><p> </p><p>“No,” Kalashnik said, angry and commanding.</p><p> </p><p>“Concern three,” Boris insisted, throwing all caution to the wind, “is -“</p><p> </p><p>“Enough!” The Colonel yelled, slicing an arm through the air to accentuate his point. “Enough of your impertinence!”</p><p> </p><p>“Then maybe it’s time for ours,” Glukhov said, stepping forward confidently. “We will not work unless Valery stays here.”</p><p> </p><p>“Then you will be shot,” Colonel Kalashnik stated bluntly.</p><p> </p><p>"You could shoot us," Glukhov conceded, "but who will do the work? You will not be able to get a new crew here and in place before the waste eats through the barrier."</p><p> </p><p>The challenge hung in the air as the Colonel studied the confident man, all of the miners moving to stand behind him in a united front.</p><p> </p><p>“Open fire,” the Colonel commanded his men, looking Glukhov squarely in the eye.</p><p> </p><p>"No," Valery cried desperately, ripping his arm out of the Colonel's grip and moving to stand between the miners and the guns. "No, please. These are my men, they are following my lead. Their disobedience reflects on myself not my men, they are only following their orders to listen to me to the best of their ability.</p><p> </p><p>The State <em>needs</em> these workers," he went on insistently, spreading his arms to encompass all of them.</p><p> </p><p>Boris felt a fresh flare of rage when he saw a dark bruise had already formed where the Colonel had grabbed him earlier, each of the Colonel's finger's placement perfectly preserved by a dark purple shadow.</p><p> </p><p>"I can be replaced," Valery admitted, "but not these men. These men worked in the <em>only </em>mine that could echo these conditions," he implored, “and their only misdeed is following their leader.”</p><p> </p><p>Boris fixed his expression into one of desperate agreement when the Colonel looked his way, now glad they had not put the reasoning of these miners being closest to Chernobyl in their report that announced they were bringing the miners in.</p><p> </p><p>"If these men are hurt, all of the Soviet Union will die," Valery said, soft and firm, not a hint of doubt in his serious gaze.</p><p> </p><p>“Fine,” the Colonel bit out, stepping forward to reclaim Valery’s wrist and drag him toward the truck. “But <em>you</em> are leaving, and you will pay for their disobedience.”</p><p> </p><p>“No, please, I have to stay” Valery begged, digging in his heels and trying to pull away.</p><p> </p><p>Eyes flashing, the Colonel turned, backhanding Valery across the face in a blow that would have sent him to the ground if not for the Colonel’s bruising grip on his wrist.</p><p> </p><p>“Valery!” Boris yelled, surging forward to help his friend before he was intercepted and held in place by two of the Colonel’s guards.</p><p> </p><p>The miners surged forward as well, only held in place when the Colonel’s men leveled their rifles at first the worker’s chests, then Valery's when they saw their previous threat had no effect.</p><p> </p><p>“You will pay for your doubts of the Kremlin,” Kalashnik promised darkly.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes,” Valery nodded frantically, standing and brushing off the pain from his already bruising cheek to continue to make his point. “If I stay here, I will volunteer to be one of the men who surveys Masha. With the amount of radiation I have already absorbed, it would kill me within a week.</p><p> </p><p>It would keep a <em>good</em> comrade off the roof, and it would be a slow, incredibly painful death penalty for the one who openly questioned orders!”</p><p> </p><p>“You may very well earn a slow, painful death,” Colonel Kalashnik hissed, “but it won’t be because your defiance was rewarded by giving you what you want!”</p><p> </p><p>"Please," the scientist begged, his eyes wide and pleading.</p><p> </p><p>The Colonel's glare darkened even further before he raised an arm and delivered a forceful elbow to Valery's temple, sending him to the ground in an unconscious, boneless heap.</p><p> </p><p>"Valery!" Boris screamed, struggling against the two men who held him in place.</p><p> </p><p>The miners raced forward, held back by the Colonel's men, who had shifted their positions while he talked to the scientist, and were ready for the wave of angry men approaching.</p><p> </p><p>The Colonel dragged Valery to the truck by his ankle, bending once next to the vehicle to pick him up and shove him into the back of the truck before he moved toward the driver's side door and got in.</p><p> </p><p>Boris struggled harder, staring in horror at the place his friend had disappeared behind the truck door. Another soldier appeared in front of him, seemingly out of nowhere, and before he registered what was happening, the man brought the butt of his rifle down on the side of his head.</p><p> </p><p>The blow didn't knock him out, but it was a close thing. His knees immediately collapsed out from under him, and the two soldiers who had been holding him back no longer held him up, letting him fall to the ground in a graceless heap.</p><p> </p><p>He heard the other soldiers retreating to the trucks as well, but couldn't raise his head to look.</p><p> </p><p>He laid on the ground, panting, fingers clawing into the dirt as he tried to move past the pain and refocus on the scientist. He turned his head enough to see the truck pull out of the gate and out of sight, feeling disconnected as he tried to comprehend what that meant for the camp and all of the workers.</p><p> </p><p>He stared in horror, but within a few seconds the miners had swarmed on him, touching his shoulders and back, all asking if he was ok in an overwhelming wave of noise.</p><p> </p><p>He clenched his eyes shut, pressing his forehead into the ground as he tried to push back the pain in his head, letting out pained, hissed breaths, but unable to make himself stop.</p><p> </p><p>"Alright," Glukhov's voice announced, thankfully not as loudly as the man normally would have. "Back up, give him some room. I said <em>back up</em>, fuckers, get! And shut up while you're at it."</p><p> </p><p>The hands on his back retracted, and he felt the pain fade slightly as the noise quieted.</p><p> </p><p>He took another deep breath before he dared to crack his eyes open, unsurprised to see Glukhov crouching in front of him with a concerned look on his face.</p><p> </p><p>"I'm fine," he muttered, bracing a hand on the ground to push himself up.</p><p> </p><p>"Yeah, you look it," Glukhov said sarcastically, but he gently helped Boris into a seated position, leaving a bracing hand on his shoulder as he tried to regain his bearing.</p><p> </p><p>"I'm fine," Boris repeated with more strength in his voice, pushing past his pain and shock to rebuild his mask of authority and control.</p><p> </p><p>He moved to stand up, accepting the hand Glukhov offered him, and the hand that stayed on his shoulder for a long moment when he was finally standing, swaying and unsteady, but on his feet.</p><p> </p><p>"Ok," Boris announced to the compound, not bothering to contain the upcoming discussion to only the leaders of the various portions of the camp, "first thing we need to do is figure out what Valery thought was so critical about tomorrow's dig."</p><p> </p><p>He met Glukhov's eyes, and the man nodded seriously.</p><p> </p><p>"We also need to find Colonel General Pikalov," he went on, bringing a hand to his hand to gently probe his growing bruise, "I think he's... I think -, I think he's doing the perimeter sweep with the dosimeter. Someone find him, call him, tell him what happened."</p><p> </p><p>"I will," a soldier volunteered, raising a hand and stepping forward.</p><p> </p><p>"Good," Boris nodded, "thank you. You have complete responsibility for that task, tell him to find me when he's back on site, I do not have time to be glued to a telephone right now. Next, I need someone to check on the miners on shift right now, I have not been able to monitor the meter for almost half an hour now."</p><p> </p><p>"I will," a miner volunteered, and Boris nodded his acceptance.</p><p> </p><p>"Thank you," he said sincerely. "Next, Glukhov, I need you to select ten miners, and I need General Pikalov to select at least ten soldiers, and I need to brief you all on everything I know of the conditions and the risks Valery told me in case I am the next to be taken from the camp or I mysteriously do not wake up tomorrow."</p><p> </p><p>"They know you're important here," one of the soldiers pointed out nervously, shifting his weight and exchanging glances with the man next to him.</p><p> </p><p>Boris shook his head, already running through the list of things he would need to tell them.</p><p> </p><p>"I am just a political lackey who listens to the brains of the operation and gets what they need," he dismissed.</p><p> </p><p>If his mind weren't whirling with the panic of what he needed to do he would have been touched by the expressions of emphatic disagreement on the faces around him, but his franticness left no room for any observation and he plowed on without noticing.</p><p> </p><p>"They took Valery, they can take me. I am already on their list. I told Valery the secret police had bugged his phone, I ordered personnel to get the lead we needed from the Moscow reserve even though the council deemed it more important for Moscow to have the resource, I went around the system to get enough iodine pills for everyone, I've already been warned I am on my last chance.</p><p> </p><p>I need to make sure I've passed on all the information you will need for the rest of the operation before Colonel Kalashnik gets to Moscow and informs the Kremlin of my transgressions. I expect it will not take the council long to come to a decision, and I expect it will not be in my favor."</p><p> </p><p>"We were caught off guard when they took our scientist," Glukhov said seriously, "but we won't let them take our fixer. We won't let them drag you away."</p><p> </p><p>Around him, both miners and soldiers nodded their agreement, and Boris froze, looking at him in a shocked silence.</p><p> </p><p>"Thank you," he said in a rough voice a few seconds later. "Thank you, I appreciate that more than I can say, but if they come to take me to Moscow, I do not want any of you standing in their way. Valery is right, he and I were the ones that called you in, and we made a promise to each other that we would get you out again.</p><p> </p><p>I do not want any of you getting shot, but even disregarding that, the <em>continent</em> needs you to do what you're doing. There is no time to bring anyone else in, there is no time to choose another course of action, if we lose this battle and do not install the heat shield in time, we lose the war and millions of people die with us.</p><p> </p><p>I cannot convey how much your willingness to defend me means to me, but we cannot sacrifice the world for one man who played his part in creating this system."</p><p> </p><p>His words hung in the silence that followed, the miners and soldiers around him unable to object to his reasoning but also unwilling to accept his command.</p><p> </p><p>Glukhov studied him for a long moment before he said, "We'll see," and Boris decided to accept the non-agreement for the moment.</p><p> </p><p>"After we do all of that I need to write what supplies we are stocked with," Boris went on, refocusing on what needed to be done. "Right now I keep it mostly mental with some scraps of paper scattered around, but you'll need it consolidated if you have to move on without me."</p><p> </p><p>"What about getting our scientist back?" one of the miner's in the crowd asked loudly, a chorus of agreement rippling through the crowd.</p><p> </p><p>Boris nodded seriously, turning to the general direction the question had come from.</p><p> </p><p>"We will have several long meetings to think of ideas for how we can get him back, but in the short term, the safety of you and all of the other miners and soldiers on this base has to be my priority.</p><p> </p><p>Valery was positive that if we do not reach the correct placement to do the heat-transfer in time, the molten core will melt through the concrete barrier and seep into the groundwater, which will then be swept down the river, dispersing through the entire continent and into the ocean as it is washed into each new river, as it evaporates and rains down on cities and towns, as trees soak it in through their roots and animals drink it.</p><p> </p><p>Every piece of wildlife, every square foot of the entire continent will die if we do not fix this, but he was also adamant that it had to be done to exact specifications or it would put all of you in danger in the meantime.</p><p> </p><p>He was supposed to give me the specifics this afternoon, he's been up for two nights in a row running calculations on how to keep the radiation levels you would be exposed to under the threshold while still making whatever the change is. He said he found it this morning but he didn't get the chance to tell me, we have his notes, but I don’t know what they <em>mean</em>."</p><p> </p><p>Boris clutched at his own hair, trying hard not to pull it out as he frantically spun through ideas, each as unacceptable as the last.</p><p> </p><p>"What about the Ulana lady?" a voice in the crowd called. </p><p> </p><p>"Ulana Khomyuk," Boris breathed, his eyes snapping open. "Yes! Yes, well done, yes! She would know. I need to call her. I can't hold all the information anymore, you'll all have to be looped in. Someone who knows how to work the announcement system come with me, we'll use the double telephone set and put the announcement microphone right next to the receiver and hope it can broadcast it."</p><p> </p><p>A man raised his hand and stepped forward, and Boris nodded, turning toward the building that held the announcement system.</p><p> </p><p>"Glukhov," Boris added, turning back to the man, "I need you to think of some way your mine was different from all the other mines in the Union."</p><p> </p><p>"So you didn't choose us because we're special?" he asked with a teasing scoff.</p><p> </p><p>Boris rolled his eyes, unable to let himself be pulled into the banter when so many problems hung in the air.</p><p> </p><p>"We chose you because you were closest," he said distractedly, his mind already turning to the next issue to solve.</p><p> </p><p>Glukhov nodded as if he had expected that answer and said, "Right, thanks for claiming otherwise. I'll come up with something."</p><p> </p><p>"Good, thank you," Boris said, glad at least one thing was off his plate.</p><p> </p><p>He took a deep breath and pushed past his pain. He had men to save.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you for reading, I'd LOVE to hear what you think!!</p><p>Side note, just for clarity, yes, both the colonel and the new scientist are made up characters, it’s not that you just missed two people in the show.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. May 7, 1986 - several hours later</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for the kudos! I hope you enjoy the chapter :)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"What the HELL happened?" Pikalov demanded, striding toward Boris where he sat in the communal hall, carefully tracing over the lines he had drawn on the building plans in pencil during his call with Ulana.</p><p> </p><p>Most of the men not on shift were in the hall with him, but they all stayed quiet, turning to Boris for the answer.</p><p> </p><p>He sighed.</p><p> </p><p>"The Kremlin happened," he said, annoyed, setting the pen down and turning his attention to the steaming General.</p><p> </p><p>"Well make them UN-happen!" Pikalov demanded, coming to a stop standing across the table from Boris. "We <em>need</em> Valery, what the hell are we supposed to do without him? How the fuck are we supposed to do this without a scientist?"</p><p> </p><p>Boris sighed again, trying and failing to hide the exhaustion in his eyes.</p><p> </p><p>"I told them that," he said, weary and slightly defeated, and Pikalov's anger cooled as he reined in his frustration before Boris bore the full brunt.</p><p> </p><p>"What did -," Pikalov started to ask as Boris looked to the side to find the cap to his pen, sensing the upcoming talk would not be a quick discussion.</p><p> </p><p>Boris looked back to the General in confusion when Pikalov cut off mid-sentence, and found the man staring at him with a wide-eyed, surprised look.</p><p> </p><p>Boris cocked his head in confusion, growing more bewildered as he watched a light of rage grow in the General's eyes.</p><p> </p><p>"What?" he asked, hoping to move the discussion along so he could return to the previous task before he forgot what Ulana had told him.</p><p> </p><p>"They hurt you?" Pikalov asked in a low, lethal voice.</p><p> </p><p>"Oh," Boris said, his hand automatically raising to lightly prod his injury before he caught himself and pulled it back down. "Not much," he dismissed.</p><p> </p><p>"Yes, much," Glukhov asserted, annoyed. "They hit him with the butt of a rifle, he was on the ground for over a minute."</p><p> </p><p>"Yes, <em>thank you</em>, Glukhov," Boris said sarcastically, sending the man an aggravated glare that did nothing to deter him. "It wasn't that bad, I'm fine."</p><p> </p><p>“He is <em>not</em>,” Glukhov insisted. “He’s had a headache ever since, sensitivity to light, and occasional trouble concentrating. I’ve checked his pupils, I don’t think he has a concussion, but I <em>do</em> think he’s hurt and needs to lay down.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well I <em>can’t</em>,” Boris shot back, letting out more frustration than he meant to. “I still need to consolidate the camp’s orders and supplies, teach everyone the warnings Valery gave me, ensure the new dosimeters came in, authorize the supply pick up, and order more fucking food!</p><p> </p><p>I can’t just go take a nap because when I lay down there is no guarantee I will be getting back up, and I can’t leave you all here uninformed, unprepared, and unaware!”</p><p> </p><p>Silence echoed through the room as everyone stared at him with wide eyes.</p><p> </p><p>He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and trying to push his pain away.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I’m sorry, Glukhov, I know you are concerned and I appreciate it but I <em>cannot</em> risk the Kremlin giving execution orders before I’ve passed on the information you all need.”</p><p> </p><p>There was another long pause as the room mulled his statement over.</p><p> </p><p>“Because we’re you’re boys?” Glukhov asked eventually with a teasing lilt, obviously doing his best to break the tension that had fallen over the room and Boris followed his lead.</p><p> </p><p>“No,” he snorted, waving a hand to brush off the question. “You’re confusing me with our dumb scientist. It’s Valery that has grown unreasonably attached to you all, not me. I’m a politician, everyone knows we’re not capable of emotions or personal attachments.”</p><p> </p><p>Glukhov barked a loud laugh at the answer, surprised by the comeback, and soon everyone around him was laughing as well.</p><p> </p><p>Boris smirked as he turned back to what he had been doing, deciding at least one of them would be useful. He might be living on borrowed time, and he didn’t have any to waste.</p><p> </p><p>"No emotions or physical attachments?" Glukhov asked, gasping slightly as he tried to control his laughter.</p><p> </p><p>"That's right," Boris sniffed, leaning closer to the paper as he carefully traced a thin line with the pen.</p><p> </p><p>The men howled as he pointedly ignored them.</p><p> </p><p>"Then <em>why</em>," one of the miners choked out through his laughter, "did you tell the Colonel we were <em>your boys</em>?"</p><p> </p><p>"That was Valery," Boris informed him flatly, picking up another color of pen for the next section of the plans.</p><p> </p><p>"No it wasn't!" the miner argued indignantly, trying to shove his amusement down long enough to finish the debate. "I heard <em>you</em> say that, and I quote, ‘he is the one who makes suggestions of what will keep <em>our boys</em> safe’."</p><p> </p><p>Boris glanced up, eyes flicking to the man long enough to register who was speaking, before he refocused on his work.</p><p> </p><p>"Danyl is suffering from delusions, Glukhov," he noted absently, "you should take him to the medic."</p><p> </p><p>Another wave of laughter rolled through the crowd, lasting several long seconds before Danyl could speak again.</p><p> </p><p>"It was <em>you</em>," he insisted, amusement bright in his eyes.</p><p> </p><p>"No," Boris drawled, finishing the tracing he needed to do and recapping all of the pens before he refocused on the General.</p><p> </p><p>"These men are delusional," he informed the man over the wave of laughter flowing through the crowd, a hint of a wry smile on his face. "Ignore them. What we should be focusing on is the update you asked for."</p><p> </p><p>The room quieted, sobering slightly as the men remembered what had started the debate, but the edge of desperation had lessened, which was enough for the moment.</p><p> </p><p>Boris sent Glukhov a quick, approving look before he refocused on the General, catching the amused smile the miner sent him in his peripheral vision.</p><p> </p><p>"They came, they took Valery. The Colonel said something about meetings, but he wasn't specific about why he was needed to go to Moscow. Valery protested, I protested, the miners protested, the Colonel took him anyway. They're sending another scientist who should arrive tomorrow evening."</p><p> </p><p>"But what about the critical point the miners are supposed to hit tomorrow morning?" Pikalov cut in worriedly. "Do we know what it is?”</p><p> </p><p>Boris nodded, expression tightening as he tried not to show just how worried he was by the upcoming challenge.</p><p> </p><p>"The miners had a stroke of genius," he said, nodding toward the men, "and we called Ulana Khomyuk."</p><p> </p><p>The General nodded, looking relieved.</p><p> </p><p>"Did she know?" he asked.</p><p> </p><p>Boris nodded.</p><p> </p><p>"I spent almost two hours on the phone with her, most of that trying to explain what I could make sense of in Valery's notes, but she figured it out.</p><p> </p><p>There is a support beam for the structure. It is exposed at the surface, and Valery was afraid it would create a sort of duct way for radiation if the miners got too close, but giving it the wide berth it needs would add too much time to the project.</p><p> </p><p>Valery found, and Ulana confirmed, that the support beam has a large section made of a different material where the various beams brace together, and as long as the miners are careful, they should be able to use that section as a buffer without having to go as widely around it. Something about the materials used or the coating reduces reactivity or something. I don't know, the point is, it will work."</p><p> </p><p>Pikalov nodded his acceptance, trusting Boris' word.</p><p> </p><p>"I'm tracing the new route now," Boris explained, waving a hand at the building map in front of him. “The different colors correspond to the depth needed to line up perfectly with the dampened radiation."</p><p> </p><p>Pikalov nodded, breathing a sigh of relief as his shoulders lowered slightly.</p><p> </p><p>"Ok," he said, nodding his approval of the solution. "Good -, good job, Fixer."</p><p> </p><p>"Fixer?" Boris asked, quirking an eyebrow at him. "The miners called me that, too. Did you all have some kind of secret meeting to give nicknames or something?"</p><p> </p><p>"Well, it's what you are, isn't it?" Pikalov asked, looking surprised at the question. "Moscow sent me as the General to handle the soldiers, Valery to handle the science, and you to fix everything else."</p><p> </p><p>Boris stared at him for a long moment before he rolled his eyes and pulled the next sheet of paper to him with a shake of his head.</p><p> </p><p>"<em>Anyway</em>," he continued, unimpressed with the explanation, "the miners know what they need to do for that."</p><p> </p><p>"Good," Pikalov repeated, quirking a grin at Boris' unsubtle change of subject. "Did you say they were sending us Khomyuk?"</p><p> </p><p>Boris shook his head, face pinched in annoyance.</p><p> </p><p>"No," he scowled, "Valery asked, they won't. They're sending someone named Ivan Fedorov."</p><p> </p><p>"He's stupid," Glukhov informed Pikalov firmly, and the General shot him a questioning look.</p><p> </p><p>"You know him?" Pikalov asked, brow furrowed in confusion.</p><p> </p><p>"No," Glukhov shook his head, lighting a cigarette and bringing it to his mouth, "but Scientist went to school with him, and he said Fedorov's stupid."</p><p> </p><p>Pikalov looked to Boris, eyes widening slightly in alarm, and Boris reluctantly nodded a confirmation.</p><p> </p><p>"Valery literally begged for it to be someone else," he told the General, knowing that Pikalov knew Valery well enough to understand the significance of such a display from the shy, reserved man.</p><p> </p><p>"Well, fuck," Pikalov breathed, shock and dread warring across his expression.</p><p> </p><p>"My thoughts exactly," Boris agreed, looking down at the paper he hadn't finished and adding the rest of the supplies it was missing.</p><p> </p><p>"I'm just about...," he trailed off, adding the last item. “There. Done. I've consolidated a list of all of the things we currently have in stock," he said, pointing to the far left column.</p><p> </p><p>"These," he gestured to a middle column, "are the supplies en route and already approved, the third column," he pointed, "are the ones approved but not fully submitted yet, and this last column is a list of the items we request consistently every week."</p><p> </p><p>"Why are you making this list," Pikalov asked, sounding like he didn't want to know the answer. "You're always the one who makes these lists. Did you mean it earlier when you said..."</p><p> </p><p>"Yeah," Boris sighed, feeling heavy and exhausted. "I don't know for sure, it's not definite, but it's more than just a possibility."</p><p> </p><p>"They said it was your last chance," Pikalov whispered, horrified, and Boris nodded, eyes dropping to the next list in his pile so he didn't have to look at the men around him.</p><p> </p><p>"Yeah," he sighed, "but I had to try."</p><p> </p><p>There were a few seconds of silence as he wrote the names and long-since memorized phone numbers of the reliable suppliers on the new piece of paper.</p><p> </p><p>"It might not be an execution order," he told the General with a forced note of optimism, not looking up from his writing. "It's been hours and I haven't received a phone call yet.</p><p> </p><p>They may decide to let the radiation issue the sentence for them. Or they might be waiting for Fedorov to arrive so they don't ruin the continent, but either way, I think it will be enough time to pass on the information I need to give you all."</p><p> </p><p>"Oh," Pikalov said softly.</p><p> </p><p>"Yeah," Boris agreed without looking up. "Here," he pushed the sheet of paper forward for the table to see. "These are the best suppliers, even if they are not the least expensive.</p><p> </p><p>They can be counted on to deliver supplies when they promise, and the supplies they do deliver are worth having. I've written under them what kinds of things they stock, you'll need to call them to put in an order, but I've never had problems with their service."</p><p> </p><p>Boris finally looked up at the General.</p><p> </p><p>"Pikalov, I need you to pick ten soldiers, I need to run over everything Valery told me with you, them, Glukhov, and the miners he picks.</p><p> </p><p>We may want to just announce it to everyone for clarity, but pick ten people who will be responsible for remembering what I tell them. Preferably people who already have an interest or specialization in science."</p><p> </p><p>Pikalov nodded.</p><p> </p><p>"When -," he cleared his throat and tried again. "When will we have the briefing?"</p><p> </p><p>"Tonight," Boris said firmly. "Before we leave the hall. I'm almost done writing down the information you'll need, maybe twenty more minutes, then we can meet by the chalkboards and I'll tell you everything I can remember Valery ever warning me about."</p><p> </p><p>"Ok, Shcherbina," Pikalov said quietly, his tone sad and serious.</p><p> </p><p>Boris looked up from his writing to send him a small, reassuring smile.</p><p> </p><p>"It will be alright, Pikalov," he promised softly, holding the man's gaze. "One way or another, it will work out. I'm not sorry for what I did, and I wouldn't take it back if I had the chance.</p><p> </p><p>They might not even give the order, but if they do, I was given enough time to pass on what you all will need, and that is enough for me. One way or another, it will be ok."</p><p> </p><p>Pikalov swallowed hard, but nodded and pushed down the emotions surging to the surface.</p><p> </p><p>"Of course it will," he agreed firmly, swallowing again. "Of course it will."</p><p> </p><p>Boris sent him another small smile and hoped it was true.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! I’d love to know what you think :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. May 10, 1986</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for the kudos!!!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Three days later, and the orders for Boris' punishment never came, but he was starting to think that was because they sent it <em>to</em> him in the form of Ivan Fedorov.<br/><br/>Boris spied Fedorov eating in the mess hall and immediately decided to instead eat in his small trailer, which had been brought on site to save time from traveling to and from the hotel every day.<br/><br/>He let out a heavy, despondent sigh as he collapsed into his seat. How could he possibly overcome the <em>daily</em> problems that arose without Valery? What was he supposed to do with the idiot the Kremlin had sent him?<br/><br/>Boris surveyed his food options with exhausted eyes, deciding to nibble on an easily accessible roll while he mustered the energy to make an actual meal.<br/><br/>He stood and pulled the bag of bread that had arrived that morning off the small shelf and brought it to his desk, tiredly unwrapping the twist-tie and pulling the bag open.<br/><br/>The rolls were baked together in a large square for easier transport, and he pulled off the one in the far back, left corner.<br/><br/>He rolled his eyes at himself. His mother had done that when he was young, and he was unable to break the habit of doing the same.<br/><br/>She had laughingly told him when he was younger that it was her way of reminding herself to do what others least expected, and he had started doing the same as he tried to be just like her.<br/><br/>He huffed a small laugh, glad no one around the camp had noticed his quirk, knowing that would lead to him having to explain, which would seem rather hypocritical as he constantly pushed everyone in the camp to be safe and predictable.<br/><br/>He shook his head at himself and took a large bite, chewing twice before he realized there was something wrong with the bread.<br/><br/>He spit the roll into a napkin, peering at it in confusion, which doubled when he realized there was a piece of paper in his roll.<br/><br/>Boris cocked his head as he stared at it. Maybe it had fallen out of a baker’s pocket?<br/><br/>He pulled it out, brushing off the crumbs of bread that stuck to it, and opened it carefully.<br/><br/>‘Boris,’ he read, with growing amazement.<br/><br/>‘I heard of the request for ventilation shafting since fans were rejected(which was the right choice). You MUST ensure they have chromium treated stainless steel.<br/><br/>It CANNOT, under ANY circumstances, be ductile iron OR untreated steel, both contain GRAPHITE, which will spark a chain of radiation until our boys are irradiated before they can escape the tunnel.<br/><br/>Protect our boys. DO NOT let them have anything except chromium treated stainless steel, the chromium treatment MUST be at least .03% at the very minimum.<br/><br/>Also, they said it was the plan at the meeting, but you MUST NOT have any ACTUAL airflow through the tunnels. Running cold air through sealed pipes is a good idea to lessen the heat, but there MUST NOT be ANY vent panels along the shafting!<br/><br/>I miss your stupid optimism,<br/>Valery’<br/><br/>How in the world? Boris stared at the note in shock. After a stunned second he reached into the bag, pulling all of the bread out and tearing the rolls in half with his hands in search of any other notes. There were none other than the small piece of paper slipped into the first roll he ate.<br/><br/>Somehow, Valery had managed to predict which bread ration would go to his trailer, <em>and </em>which roll he would eat first. Apparently the little scientist was more observant then Boris gave him credit for.<br/><br/>He sat in amazed silence for another long second before he snapped into action.</p><p>Fedorov was eating, he’d seen him in the mess hall, which meant that Glukhov would <em>not</em> be in the mess hall as the two men had instantly hated each other.<br/><br/>Boris couldn't blame Glukhov for despising the supposed scientist. Boris had tried his best to give him a chance, but it had only taken a few additional seconds for Boris to agree with the opinion Glukhov had accepted without question.<br/><br/>The man was not only incompetent, but also dangerously manipulative. He clearly had his sights set on a public office, and he had no qualms about throwing anyone in the camp under the bus to make himself look better, not that he didn't already think he outshone everyone in the camp merely by existing.<br/><br/>Boris had met a lot of power-hungry men in his life, but most at least had the decency to cultivate the skills they needed to <em>hold</em> a position once they had stabbed everyone they knew in the back to get it.<br/><br/>Fedorov was a different story.<br/><br/>He obviously <em>had</em> been to school for nuclear physics, he seemed to be able to muddle his way through the majority of the equations given enough time, but in most conversations, Boris felt like <em>he</em> knew more about a nuclear reactor than the supposed expert sent by the Kremlin themselves.<br/><br/>Boris could have overlooked the man's stupidity had it not also come with an equally strong controlling personality.<br/><br/>The man did not like the miners, believing them beneath him. He did not like the soldiers, believing them idiotic and dull. He did not like Boris, seemingly viewing him as a threat, although the scientist occasionally seemed to accept him as a reluctant ally, as if it were the two of them against the idiocy of the camp.<br/><br/>Boris usually used the temporary camaraderie to his, and his boys’, advantage, but his hatred of the man skyrocketed by the second when forced to pretend to be his friend.<br/><br/>Fedorov did not enjoy spending time with anyone in the camp except occasionally Boris and Pikalov, but he also did <em>not</em> appreciate when anyone -particularly Boris, Glukhov, and Pikalov- had meetings or long conversations without him.<br/><br/>Boris knew he had limited time to work with, the scientist was normally a quick eater as no one made any effort to talk to him and he didn't lower himself to converse with anyone below his intellect level.<br/><br/>Boris had to find Glukhov and pass on Valery's message before Fedorov happened upon them and refused to go along with the suggestion or reported back to the Kremlin they were being subversive.<br/><br/>Boris looked in two of the miner’s most frequented buildings before he found him in the third.<br/><br/>“Glukhov,” Boris said in an undertone, catching the man’s attention.<br/><br/>Two of the nearby miners slid over to cover their discussion, and Boris nodded gratefully at them.<br/><br/>“Valery slipped me this,” he said, subtly handing Glukhov the slip of paper. “The suggestion has to come from you, make up some mining reasoning so it doesn’t turn into a physics debate. If it comes from me, they’ll know he told me somehow.”<br/><br/>Glukhov nodded firmly, reading the note, a smile growing on his face.<br/><br/>“How’d he get this to you?” he asked, slipping the note carefully into his pocket with deliberate casualness.<br/><br/>“He somehow managed to figure out exactly which bread ration would go to my trailer and which piece I would eat first,” Boris explained, unable to stop the smile that slipped onto his face. “It was folded up inside my roll.”<br/><br/>Glukhov huffed a laugh, shaking his head in disbelief.<br/><br/>“It’s moves like this that make me wish I had spent more time talking to him when he was here,” he muttered.<br/><br/>Boris flashed him a grin, nodding at the other two miners, then quickly stole out of the room before Fedorov spotted them together, confident Glukhov would take care of the problem.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Note, I am not a physicist, so please don’t take anything in this story as absolute fact. </p><p>I did do extensive internet research and the fact that ductile iron and untreated steel contains graphite is true, but I’m not sure if the graphite would inherently increase reactivity or if they have to treat/prepare it in a certain way. </p><p>According to the internet, ductile iron and untreated steel can cause problems in mines, but it was because of mining reasons not potential radiation. The chromium treatment is how they combat them, the multiple mining forums I consulted agree that if it’s less than .03%, you might as well not even have it, but you should be ok with at least the .03.</p><p>I hope you enjoyed the chapter, I’d love to hear what you think!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. May 12, 1986</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“This came in the mail today,” a soldier announced two days later, holding up an envelope and then handing it to Boris, before moving past him to lay a packet of papers in a bin marked ‘Fedorov’.<br/><br/>“Thank you, Mikhail,” Boris said absently, picking up the envelope and using a nearby butter knife to cut it open.<br/><br/>“That was my knife, you <em>prick</em>,” Glukhov told him, annoyed.<br/><br/>Boris shrugged, unconcerned.<br/><br/>“You got <em>Moscow</em> all over it!” Glukhov complained.<br/><br/>Boris shrugged carelessly again.<br/><br/>“Consider it flavoring,” he said, pulling a letter and small cassette out of the envelope.<br/><br/>Glukhov snorted, dropping the pretense of annoyance and grinned at Boris.<br/><br/>“Where’s Fedo-idiot?” Mikhail asked, waving a careless hand at the mail in the bin for him.<br/><br/>“He’s out doing a dosimeter check on the edge of perimeter with Pikalov,” Boris answered absently, unfolding the letter. “They should be back in about three hours or so.”<br/><br/>Mikhail barked a laugh.<br/><br/>“If Pikalov doesn’t kill him first,” he said with an impish smile.<br/><br/>“That would be the opposite of a problem,” Boris muttered, bringing the paper closer to his face to start reading as the men in the room laughed.<br/><br/>“Wait,” he said, his voice suddenly serious, and everyone took note. “Hold on...”<br/><br/>“What is it?” Glukhov asked, sitting up straighter, the other dozen or so miners and soldiers moving closer to the pair.<br/><br/>“Listen to this,” Boris said, sounding a bit shocked.<br/><br/>He cleared his throat and dragged his eyes back up to the top of the letter.<br/><br/>“Hello Mr. Shcherbina,<br/><br/>I was present in a meeting with your friend, the scientist, today. I want you to understand that I do not stand against the State and I do not believe in subversive behavior or counteracting the Kremlin, but your scientist friend is frustratingly endearing no matter not much I tried to hate him, and I fear he brings up a valid concern.<br/><br/>Attached is a copy of a portion of the audio of the meeting I was present in, do with the information what you will, but do it secretly. If you are found out, I will deny ever having sent this, please burn this letter immediately.’<br/><br/>Boris looked up, exchanging a wide eyed look with the men around him.<br/><br/>“It’s not signed,” he said, bringing out a lighter and lighting the letter on fire before dropping it into the ashtray.<br/><br/>After a second of thought, the envelope joined the letter in becoming a pile of ashes.<br/><br/>He picked up the cassette, suddenly much more careful with it than he had been before.<br/><br/>“Mikhail,” Boris said, pulling his eyes up to look at the soldier. “Find me a player and spread the word that I am to be subtly notified the second Fedorov enters camp.”<br/><br/>“Yes, sir,” he said, standing up and moving to a far counter of the room.<br/><br/>“Here, sir,” he returned with a cassette player, then moved to the door to have a quiet conversation with a nearby soldier.<br/><br/>Anton nodded firmly, turning on his heel to disperse the message, and Mikhail returned to the table as Boris slid the cassette into the player.<br/><br/>He checked the volume on the side, adjusted it, and hit play, leaning back slightly as sound filtered out of the speakers.<br/><br/>“No, sir, you don’t understand,” Valery's voice said, his desperation clear. “That will pump in radioactive air even without actual vents in the shafting! We dug the tunnels twelve feet down because that was the depth needed to escape the radiation levels.<br/><br/>If you draw air in from the surface, it will pump radioactive air through the tunnel, and the extra depth is for nothing! We must extend the venting system several hundred additional meters to draw in clean air!”<br/><br/>“Comrade,” a voice said sharply, a note of clear warning in the tone.<br/><br/>“Charkov, Chairman of the KGB,” Boris explained to the men beside him without looking away from the tape, and he felt them tense around him.<br/><br/>“Comrade,” the man went on, “I believe I warned you that if you continued to speak out of turn, you and I will be having a private <em>discussion</em> to ensure you understood the importance of showing others respect. If you continue as you are, we <em>will</em> be having that <em>discussion</em>.”<br/><br/>“Very well, if we must,” Valery conceded, “but first I must talk to Fedorov! He was not there when we started the dig, maybe he does not realize!”<br/><br/>“Did he just say ‘very well, if we must’ to a KGB torture session?” Mikhail asked in disbelief.<br/><br/>“Yeah, I think he did,” Glukhov said faintly, staring at the player in shock.<br/><br/>“You will <em>not</em> talk to Fedorov,” Charkov snarled dangerously, but Valery paid him no mind.<br/><br/>“It is not meant as disrespect, merely a query,” Valery insisted, as if he hadn’t just had the head of the KGB himself demand he stop. “There is a tremendous amount of pressure on the scientist on site, there is no one he can ask, no one who can help him with these questions, surely it is a gesture of good faith to help him succeed?”<br/><br/>“It is <em>not</em> a gesture of good faith to <em>question </em>your comrade at every turn! You are here to explain things to us that come in the reports, not to make the decisions! What happens at Chernobyl is no longer your business except to convey it to us!”<br/><br/>“My comrade’s decisions affect the safety of my people,” Valery said sharply, without a trace of fear in his voice, “that makes it my business.”<br/><br/>There was a moment of complete, shocked silence before Valery plowed on.<br/><br/>“I accept that it is not my position to communicate with anyone on base directly, but can it please be conveyed through the proper channels that the ventilation must be extended or it will kill every single miner in the camp within the week?”<br/><br/>There was another long silence before Valery added, “Please?” in a tone of blatant begging.<br/><br/>“Comrade Legasov,” the chairman said in a low, lethal voice. “Allow me to be perfectly clear. This continued disrespect is <em>unacceptable</em>. The <em>only</em> reason I have not killed you yet, is because you are useful.”<br/><br/>“Then let me be useful!” Valery begged, seeming to have completely bypassed the threat of homicide and grasping at the possibility of driving his point into action.<br/><br/>Boris and the men around him stared in open mouthed, horror-tinged shock.<br/><br/>“Sir, <em>please</em>! I will beg you on my knees if you require it, but we <em>must</em> tell Fedorov of the extension needed or all of the miners will die!”<br/><br/>“I think,” the chairman said icily, “that Fedorov understands what is happening at Chernobyl far better than <em>you</em>. He is there, he is a scientist, and he will not be questioned by the likes of <em>you</em>.”<br/><br/>“Then I won’t question him, I’ll tell him!” Valery agreed desperately, clearly missing the point of the threat. “Please, sir, my men!”<br/><br/>“They are not yours!” Charkov exploded. “They never were!”<br/><br/>“I brought them there,” Valery said in a devastated whisper. “<em>Please</em>. They will die <em>horribly</em>.”<br/><br/>“I said <em>no</em>!”<br/><br/>“Sir! We must -“<br/><br/>“This meeting is adjourned,” Charkov snapped, followed by the sound of a chair pushing back from the table abruptly.<br/><br/>“We must -” Valery repeated before his voice cut off with the sound of another chair being pushed roughly back.<br/><br/>“I hope no one needs Comrade Legasov’s expertise for today, we will be having <em>a discussion</em>.”<br/><br/>“Sir-,” Valery started, but he didn’t finish, sounds of someone being pulled from the room and a door firmly closing.<br/><br/>The tape ended with a definitive click, leaving the room in horrified silence as they stared at the player.<br/><br/>“I need to go,” Boris said, standing abruptly. "Mikhail, I'm putting you in charge of destroying the tape. Do it immediately. You may tell the others of what it said, but do not wait and try to show it to them, you’re asking to be caught. Can I count on you to do it?”<br/><br/>“Yes, sir,” Mikhail said with a firm nod.<br/><br/>“Thank you,” Boris told him, then extended his gaze to the entire wide-eyed group. “I need to get a hold of Fedorov while he’s still in his annoyed haze of spending extensive time with Pikalov so he’ll be too frustrated to try to stick his nose in the details.”<br/><br/>The men around him nodded.<br/><br/>“Glukhov, I’m going to tell him that on Thursday, that night he was overly tired, you told him there was another estimate coming for the extension of the air intake, and you just finished it and gave it to me and I’m going to put the order in now. Back me up if he mentions it to you later. To soothe his ego I’m going to make him think he demanded it.”<br/><br/>Glukhov nodded seriously.<br/><br/>“Good. Now, all the rest of you, gear up and walk the camp with dosimeters, starting at the edge of the tunnel where the vent would let out.<br/><br/>Walk away from the tunnel until you find the point where the radiation drops off. Measure very carefully to that point then add another thirty meters. Get me that number the instant you have it, but make sure it is accurate."<br/><br/>The miners and soldiers around him nodded seriously, backs straightening as they accepted their task.<br/><br/>"Good," he said, moving to the door. "Come find me in the communications room when you have it."<br/><br/>With the orders given he turned his thoughts to how he would soothe the frustrated man's annoyance into deciding he had asked for the extended venting. It would be a challenge, but Boris was confident he could convince him. It was easy to convince the idiot he was smart.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks for reading, I’d love to hear what you think!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. May 15, 1986</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I did a lot of research, but please don’t take any of the science in this chapter as gospel. I am not a physicist, just someone who can work google.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Boris let out a sigh of relief as he dropped into the chair in the room that housed the announcement system.<br/>
<br/>
If anyone asked, he was waiting for a phone call to come in to test the new feature added, connecting the phone line to the speaker systems around the compound which would allow an incoming call to be broadcast if the switch was flipped.<br/>
<br/>
That was his excuse, and he would adamantly defend it, but the truth was that he was hiding. Hiding from... everyone.<br/>
<br/>
He was desperate for a few minutes alone to extinguish the growing frustration roiling beneath his skin. Boris was an extrovert, and he normally enjoyed being around people, but even he had reached his limit.<br/>
<br/>
He liked people, and he loved his boys, but the constant stress was getting to him, not to mention the way every single man, except the idiotic excuse of a scientist the Kremlin had sent, looked to him for answers for everything that went wrong, whether or not it was in his area of expertise.<br/>
<br/>
Without Valery, he had become the stand-in scientist, the men looking to him for verification of all of Fedorov's proclamations despite the fact that he had not formally learned science since the basic biology class he had taken in his first year of university.<br/>
<br/>
Despite his protests, everyone in the camp had unanimously agreed he knew more about nuclear physics than Fedorov, and would therefore become the resounding authority on any and all scientific decisions, whether he wanted to be or not. </p><p>They were thankfully subtle about their mutiny, though, and Fedorov showed no sign of noticing the lack of faith in his abilities.<br/>
<br/>
The miners and soldiers also considered Boris the ultimate authority on how the camp as a whole would respond to each order passed down by the Kremlin, despite the fact that a Colonel General was also in the camp.<br/>
<br/>
Pikalov had bowed out of the role of decision maker, arguing that Boris had been in politics for years and had a much clearer understanding of the subtext and implication behind every order and report issued.<br/>
<br/>
He was, unfortunately, probably correct, but Boris did <em>not</em> appreciate the mounting responsibility coming to rest solely on his shoulders.<br/>
<br/>
He had missed his scientist every day since he had left, but lately he seemed to be missing him by the hour, longing for the time when an authority he could trust would focus on keeping everyone safe while he wrangled the Kremlin and suppliers into the agreements they needed.<br/>
<br/>
Pikalov and Glukhov were also under a tremendous amount of pressure, and he knew they shared his constant stress and worry, but couldn't help but feel like they didn't truly <em>understand</em> the way Valery had. Even though the scientist wasn't one for long talks or sharing feelings, Boris had always known he <em>understood</em> and that there was someone who shared his crushing weight of responsibility.<br/>
<br/>
Fedorov had turned out not to be another stick added to the donkey's back, but a small tree, all on his own, the weight of his pretentious stupidity almost shattering the strength of Boris' patience.<br/>
<br/>
Boris had thought that Valery tested his patience, the well-meaning scientist constantly pushing Boris' stress levels higher with his never-ending need to make sure everyone was taken care of, but Valery was nothing compared to the frustration caused by Fedorov.<br/>
<br/>
At least Valery was difficult for the good of others and his undying need to protect people. Fedorov's annoyances were never caused by anything so altruistic. The size of Fedorov's ego was only rivaled by the height of his stupidity, and they were both enormous.<br/>
<br/>
Boris had been ready to send him back to Moscow from the first conversation, and his estimation of the man had only gone downhill from there.<br/>
<br/>
The latest Fedorov-induced headache had occurred the previous evening in the daily check-in Boris had instituted for everyone not currently on shift.<br/>
<br/>
Initially, the scientist had been adamantly against the idea, falling back on the Soviet Union's ideology that only the leaders need to know all of the pieces, the workers only need to understand their work.<br/>
<br/>
It had taken copious amounts of deep, calming breaths, and every bit of political hob-knobbing he possessed, but Boris had eventually convinced Fedorov that the scientist himself had decided it would be a good idea to have everyone in the camp meet to receive the current update, planting the idea that the miners and soldiers may be the first to respond to a situation and needed to be kept aware.<br/>
<br/>
Boris had finally convinced him, though, and miners and soldiers alike had found him over the past three days to tell him how much they appreciated being kept in the loop. That had been a refreshing change, adding bright spots to the haze of stress and frustration that seemed to characterize his life since he arrived at the nuclear power plant.<br/>
<br/>
The light spots were overshadowed by the new wave of frustration Fedorov had caused the night before, and as his frustration continued to mount throughout the morning, Boris knew he needed to find somewhere he could be alone for an hour or two to try to reign in his stress before he exploded on his people.<br/>
<br/>
The pipes for the air-cooling system for the tunnels would arrive the next day, but the miners and the world could not afford to stop work until it arrived. Glukhov and his men had come to the unorthodox solution of combatting the heat by lessening the clothes, walking around the camp in nothing but their masks and hats, and Fedorov was <em>horrified</em>.<br/>
<br/>
He had brought it up at the nightly meeting, strictly forbidding such behavior, insisting that if it was truly that hot, they could take off their hats and masks rather than their pants.<br/>
<br/>
Glukhov had looked to Boris for direction, and Boris couldn't understand why, but his every instinct <em>screamed</em> that was a terrible idea, and with a barely perceptible shake of his head, Glukhov had charged into a battle of an argument with the idiot scientist, sniping back and forth for hours before they reluctantly reached an agreement.<br/>
<br/>
The miners would continue to work without pants, but as long as it was not too hot, they would leave their underwear on.<br/>
<br/>
Fedorov had looked relieved until Glukhov added in an idle afterthought that the tunnel was certain to get hotter the further they went, and Fedorov had immediately declared that he would take the duty of tracing the perimeter for dosimeter checks again, ensuring he was not in the compound to witness such a horror.<br/>
<br/>
Boris wasn't horrified to the level that Fedorov was, but he was not particularly thrilled about the new trend of walking around with nothing on, and the men had noticed without him commenting and made an effort to put clothes back on as soon as they were done in the showers, unlike the previous afternoon when they had eaten their lunch and lounged around the communal hall in nothing but their hats.<br/>
<br/>
He appreciated the efforts, and he appreciated that the secondary result of the cooling technique was the Boris received a welcome reprieve from having to deal with Fedorov, so it wasn't all bad, but Boris was long overdue for a break, and he would take it anywhere he could find it.<br/>
<br/>
He let out a long breath as he opened the binder of papers he needed to look through, willing his shoulders to relax, and settled in to the quiet calm of the room.<br/>
<br/>
Twenty minutes later, Boris set his first completed report aside and felt considerably more in control, which, of course, was the cue for the telephone to ring.<br/>
<br/>
Boris looked at the ceiling for a long moment, gathering his patience, took a deep breath, and answered the phone.<br/>
<br/>
"Hello?" he asked, trying to keep a neutral tone as his annoyance spiked at the interruption to the quiet he had finally found for one of the first times since he arrived at the plant.<br/>
<br/>
“Boris,” Valery’s tense, quiet voice came through the phone, and Boris’ gratitude that Fedorov was off site for the day tripled.<br/>
<br/>
Without thinking any further about it, he flipped the switch to broadcast the conversation to the camp, knowing if his friend was calling him it must be important.<br/>
<br/>
“Valery?” Boris asked, annoyance immediately evaporating, unable to believe his friend was speaking to him.<br/>
<br/>
“Yes, it’s me, hello,” Valery answered quietly, “sorry, I have to hurry. They said in the meeting today that Fedorov told the miners they could take their masks off inside the tunnel, is that true?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yes," Boris told him, annoyance reignited as he remembered that on-going argument.<br/>
<br/>
"They <em>cannot</em>," Valery stressed in an undertone. "They absolutely <em>cannot</em>, Boris, you must tell them. The human body can heal from minor amounts of radiation exposure due to the elasticity of skin and tissue, but that is <em>not</em> true of breathing it in.<br/>
<br/>
The bullets in the air, they do not do well in the overly oxinated area, particularly not as the lungs try to take in the oxygen and distribute it through the body. They pierce through the lungs leaving microscopic pinpricks of destroyed DNA which <em>will</em> become lung cancer in the next five years if not something worse. The heat and humidity inside the tunnels only exacerbates the problem, you <em>must</em> tell them they <em>cannot</em> take off the masks.<br/>
<br/>
I understand that heat is a problem, and if they absolutely must take off the protective clothing, it is better than being overheated, but they cannot take the masks off inside the tunnel for <em>any reason</em>. Preferably not the hats either, as the brain and grey matter are more susceptible to long term damage than other tissue in the body. Do you understand?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yes," Boris said seriously. "I will spread the word through the miners today, they are not to take masks or hats off."<br/>
<br/>
"Thank you," he breathed, sounding relieved. "You <em>must</em> do this, please."<br/>
<br/>
“Ok,” Boris said seriously. “I will, but Valera, what are you thinking? You know they have monitors on our phone calls.”<br/>
<br/>
“Not on the ones from Chairman Charkov’s office,” Valery said quietly, just above a whisper, and Boris mouth dropped open.<br/>
<br/>
“Valery!” he hissed, his alarm evident, “did you break into the office of the <em>head of the KGB</em>?”<br/>
<br/>
“It’s the only phone line not tapped!” Valery insisted in an emphatic whisper. “I had to warn you. Don’t forget!”<br/>
<br/>
“I’m not going to forget,” Boris told the scientist indignantly.<br/>
<br/>
“Good,” Valery said firmly, taking him at his word. “Keep our boys safe, I have to go.”<br/>
<br/>
Valery’s voice was replaced with a dial tone, and Boris stared in shock for a moment before he reached out and flipped off the announcement system.<br/>
<br/>
He stared at the phone for another long second before he reluctantly stood and walked out the door, deciding he should track down Glukhov and Pikalov before Fedorov returned.<br/>
<br/>
He opened the door and was vaguely amused by the stillness of the compound. Dozens of men stood in various places around the yard, frozen in place as they stared at the nearest speaker in shock.<br/>
<br/>
The loud sound of the door shutting behind Boris broke the silence but not the spell, instead of the speakers, each man turned to stare at Boris in disbelief.<br/>
<br/>
Boris rolled his eyes, becoming less surprised the longer he thought about it.<br/>
<br/>
“I keep trying to tell everyone he’s stupid,” he said to the men, exasperation evident.<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't know you meant suicidally brave," Sergeant Anton gaped at him.<br/>
<br/>
"He's <em>stupid</em>," Boris reiterated firmly, rolling his eyes again and wishing this were something unusual for his friend to have done.<br/>
<br/>
"I did not understand how bold he was from your stories," Anton said, blatant awe in his tone.<br/>
<br/>
Boris heaved a sigh, hoping Valery had not inspired the others to be as openly and obviously <em>stupid</em> as the scientist was.<br/>
<br/>
"He is the reason my hair is white," he announced in long-suffering resignation.<br/>
<br/>
"He is the reason we're all still alive," Glukhov reminded him pointedly.<br/>
<br/>
Boris sent him an unimpressed look.<br/>
<br/>
"That doesn't mean he isn't <em>stupid</em>," he insisted.<br/>
<br/>
"The world could use more of that kind of stupid," Glukhov shrugged, some of his shock falling away, leaving him impressed and vaguely amused.<br/>
<br/>
"<em>No</em>," Boris argued emphatically, "because <em>my heart</em> would not be able to survive if <em>more</em> of you idiots were pulling stupid moves like that! Worrying about <em>one</em> stupidly brave idiot is enough, thank you.<br/>
<br/>
Now, if you're finished supporting this utter idiocy, I have a message I need to go pass on."<br/>
<br/>
He marched off without waiting for them to answer, pulling his mask up from where it hung around his neck and quirking a small smile at the laughter that followed him to the tunnel.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/</p><p> </p><p>A few hours later, Boris joined the crowd making its way into the communal hall for the nightly update meeting.<br/>
<br/>
Around the room, men grabbed chairs from the rack along the wall and claimed a seat, waiting for everyone to arrive so they could begin the briefing.<br/>
<br/>
Boris trailed after Pikalov, grabbing a chair and moving to set it up beside Glukhov where he sat in the corner, Pikalov greeting the miner as he unfolded his chair and took his seat.<br/>
<br/>
Boris nodded a greeting as well, preoccupied by his worry that his friend’s subterfuge had been discovered.<br/>
<br/>
“I will start the daily report,” Fedorov announced, standing and moving to the front without acknowledgment from Boris or the general.<br/>
<br/>
Boris grit his teeth, trying not to let on how much Fedorov’s attitude of believing he was a gift sent from the heavens annoyed him.<br/>
<br/>
From the smirks on Pikalov and Glukhov’s faces, he probably wasn’t overly successful, but Fedorov showed no signs of realizing as he pretentiously pulled a chalkboard full of complicated equations out of the corner and to the front of the room to demonstrate how intelligent he was.<br/>
<br/>
Valery had never needed to flaunt the pages and pages of equations he filled his notebooks with, people could tell he was smart just by talking to him, Boris grumbled internally.<br/>
<br/>
Glukhov and a few of the miners smothered snorts at his unimpressed expression, obviously having followed his train of thought, and he sent them a slight glare and refocused on Fedorov after fixing a politely interested look on his face.<br/>
<br/>
“Ahem,” Fedorov cleared his throat to catch the attention of the already silent hall. “I would like to inform all of you that I have finished the calculations of the <em>correct</em> recommended size of the exclusion zone for my report to the Kremlin tomorrow.”<br/>
<br/>
Boris sat up straighter, suddenly interested. He didn’t like the emphasis the man had put on ‘correct’, but Fedorov had perfectly positioned himself in front of the end of the equation so his answer could not be seen before his dramatic reveal.<br/>
<br/>
“As you can see from this board,” he started, waving a hand to his side as if he were a professor teaching a lecture, “it is a complicated equation.<br/>
<br/>
Several things must be considered to know how much radiation is being spread, like the amount of uranium and the -, well,” he seemed to reconsider, in a move that fooled absolutely no one, “I will not make you try to understand, just know there are many variables to be considered.<br/>
<br/>
I have poured over the calculations and come to the answer that the exclusion should be the surrounding thirty kilometers.”<br/>
<br/>
He stepped aside dramatically to reveal the number thirty as the answer to his board full of calculations.<br/>
<br/>
“What?” Boris asked, shocked. “But Comrade Valery said the exclusion zone must be at least one hundred kilometers.”<br/>
<br/>
Fedorov rolled his eyes.<br/>
<br/>
“Comrade Legasov is an idiot,” he dismissed.<br/>
<br/>
“Valery Legasov is a genius,” Boris said, his voice low and full of unmistakable warning, “and he said it should be larger.”<br/>
<br/>
“It will be fine,” Fedorov assured pointedly, clearly losing patience with being questioned by those he deemed below his intellect level.<br/>
<br/>
“It will not be fine!” Boris argued, standing up and moving to the front of the room, an edge of panic growing. “What is this number?” he demanded, jabbing a finger at part of the equation.<br/>
<br/>
“It’s the void coefficient,” the scientist drawled imperiously, cocking a judgmental eyebrow at Boris.<br/>
<br/>
“Why is it <em>negative</em>?” Boris demanded, his blood rushing through his ears as his panic sank in, sending him into a tunnel vision focused on the dismissive scientist.<br/>
<br/>
“Because there’s water in an RBMK reactor,” Fedorov said, explaining slowly as if Boris were a particularly stupid child, and Boris’ chest tightened, making it difficult to breathe.<br/>
<br/>
“RBMK reactors have a positive void coefficient!” Boris exploded, his panic now obvious but try as he might, he wasn’t able to reel it back in. He was distantly aware he was scaring the men, the miners and soldiers watching nervously from the sidelines, but he couldn’t cover his growing dread.<br/>
<br/>
“Oh, really,” Fedorov sneered, “who gave you your degree in nuclear physics?”<br/>
<br/>
“Valery Legasov!” Boris shot back. “And he knew a hell of a lot more than you!”<br/>
<br/>
“The void coefficient is negative,” Fedorov said disdainfully. “How do you think the reaction is counteracted?”<br/>
<br/>
Boris’ panic skyrocketed, blocking out everything but the idiot in front of him who was going to get hundreds of thousands of people killed through his sheer incompetence.<br/>
<br/>
“The BORON and the TEMPERATURE RISING are the negative influences, you MORON!” Boris yelled, eyes wild, waving an arm to make his point.<br/>
<br/>
“Oh,” Fedorov looked lost for a moment before he nodded, apparently remembering that from his classes. “You knew what I meant, why does it matter?”<br/>
<br/>
Boris’ mouth dropped open as he stared in blatant disbelief, vaguely aware of the miners and soldiers going completely silent around him to listen.<br/>
<br/>
“It <em>matters</em>,” he spat out, “because <em>everything</em> we’ve done since April twenty-sixth has been about <em>restoring balance</em>, and you don’t even know if the variables you’re considering makes the reaction go UP OR DOWN!”<br/>
<br/>
He stormed into the crowd, the men springing to their feet with folding chairs in hand and parting for him as he stalked through them to the unused freestanding chalkboard, grabbing the corner and dragging it back to the shocked scientist.<br/>
<br/>
“RBMK’s are about balance!” He spat out, picking up a piece of chalk.<br/>
<br/>
“The split uranium molecules and graphite increase reactivity,” he angrily scrawled a plus sign, underlined it, and wrote u235 under it.<br/>
<br/>
“<em>Boron</em>, reduces reactivity,” he snapped, angrily adding an underlined minus side to the other side of the board and putting ‘B’ under it. “It’s why the all two hundred and eleven control rods are made of Boron, you idiot, and it is why we dropped Boron on the radioactive fire instead of water, which would have only given us radioactive steam and done nothing to put it out!”<br/>
<br/>
He cast the man a scathing glare before turning back to the board, waves of fury pouring off of him.<br/>
<br/>
“<em>Cold</em> water lowers reactivity by leeching heat from the system so it doesn’t continue rising forever,” he scrawled h2o under the ‘B’, “but when it evaporates into steam it causes a void which is called the <em>positive</em> void coefficient!”<br/>
<br/>
He wrote out ‘steam’ angrily under the ‘u235’.<br/>
<br/>
“The steam, <em>raises</em> reactivity, which makes more <em>heat</em>,” he snarled, writing ‘void’ underneath ‘steam’ with an arrow between them.<br/>
<br/>
“The <em>steam</em> raises temperature, which if you knew <em>anything</em> about nuclear physics or uranium, you would know that <em>decreases</em> reactivity! <em>That</em> is the negative temperature coefficient, which is <em>this</em> number,” he stepped toward Fedorov’s chalkboard and jabbed angrily at a positive number in the equation.<br/>
<br/>
“Which means,” he growled, using his fist to erase the plus sign in front of the negative temperature coefficient and then used the chalk to add the negative sign that should have been there, “if we did the math <em>right</em>,” he snapped as he made the negative sign in front of the positive void coefficient a plus, “we would see -,”<br/>
<br/>
He followed the equation through, adjusting the calculations for the correct numbers, erasing the coefficient of the evaporation rate of water and replacing it with the correct one before carrying on, “- it should be a hundred kilometers!” he finished, circling the answer of the corrected calculations three times before slamming the chalk down and turning to glower at the scientist.<br/>
<br/>
“I -,” the man stammered, looking at the board in shock before he rallied his anger and argued, “I merely mixed it up with the calculations of the new model we have that I read about, which has a negative void coefficient.”<br/>
<br/>
Boris’ anger, which had slightly cooled, instantly reignited.<br/>
<br/>
“A negative void coefficient?” he asked dangerously, not that Fedorov picked up on the tone.<br/>
<br/>
“That’s right,” the scientist nodded self-assuredly, growing more confident in his answer by the second.<br/>
<br/>
“Where did they implement <em>that</em>?” Boris asked in a lethal whisper.<br/>
<br/>
“Moscow,” Fedorov sniffed.<br/>
<br/>
“There are NO NUCLEAR REACTORS IN MOSCOW!” Boris exploded, slicing an arm through the air to cut off Fedorov’s protests.<br/>
<br/>
“<em>No</em>,” Boris seethed, “the reactor you are referring to is a GE BWR reactor and it is in AMERICA! The United Fucking States have Boiling Water Reactors with negative void coefficients because General Electric designed a fucking reactor that used <em>water</em> as the moderator whereas Soviet RBMK nuclear reactors use <em>graphite</em> as the primary neutron flux moderator, which is why it is currently ALL OVER THE ROOF!”<br/>
<br/>
“How -, how could -, how could you know -,” Fedorov stammered, looking stunned.<br/>
<br/>
“Apparently you absorb more than just radiation if you are actually HERE the whole time!” Boris yelled. “If you listened to <em>any of us</em> you would have known that!”<br/>
<br/>
“The KGB will make you pay for the disrespect you are showing,” Fedorov threatened, which would have been more intimidating had his voice not trembled in his delivery. “They hate you! I will tell them!”<br/>
<br/>
“Do it,” Boris snarled, low and lethal, taking a menacing step forward. “Do it, there is nothing the KGB could do to me that would be worse than putting up with you!”<br/>
<br/>
He took another step toward him and Fedorov shrunk back, looking desperately into the crowd to save him, but they all tightened their ranks, offering him no escape.<br/>
<br/>
“You think the KGB scares me?” Boris asked, his voice dropping to a low, deadly undertone. “Do you think death scares me? I am living in <em>Chernobyl</em>.<br/>
<br/>
Unlike you, I’ve been here for <em>weeks</em>, long before we had any form of protection in place. I <em>put</em> those protections in place! </p><p>I have been scheduled for a slow, painful death since the day I arrived, it would be a mercy killing if the KGB tortured me to death rather than allowing the radiation to agonizingly kill me a few years down the road.”<br/>
<br/>
He took another step forward and Fedorov’s back hit the wall as he cowered away.<br/>
<br/>
“I don’t care about my death,” Boris informed him, cold and emotionless, “but I do care if morons like you stop me from saving my boys. I do care if <em>morons like you</em> flaunt their idiocy at the expense of <em>my people</em>! I do care if <em>morons like you</em> kill the <em>entire damn planet</em> because of their misplaced arrogance!”<br/>
<br/>
Boris forced Fedorov to hold his gaze, making him watch as sparks all but flew from his eyes.<br/>
<br/>
“I’d tell you what fraction of a man you are compared to Valery Legasov, but I don’t think your single, feeble, witless, <em>idiotic</em> brain cell could comprehend how small a number it is!”<br/>
<br/>
“I quit,” Fedorov announced in a wavering threat, voice high and thready and scared.<br/>
<br/>
“Good,” Boris growled.<br/>
<br/>
“I will tell them what you did,” Fedorov warned desperately, barely understandable through his trembling.<br/>
<br/>
“Do it,” Boris commanded darkly without an ounce of fear. “Do it. Tell the council how I disrespected you by explaining how a nuclear power plant worked.”<br/>
<br/>
He took another threatening step forward.<br/>
<br/>
“Do it,” he ordered, cold and furious. “Tell the council how I had to explain to you that the void coefficient of <em>Soviet</em> BWRs are <em>positive</em> because <em>you</em> mixed it up with the <em>American</em> version.”<br/>
<br/>
He leaned in further, inches away from the terrified scientist.<br/>
<br/>
“Do it,” he demanded fiercely. “Tell them how nuclear physicist extraordinaire, Ivan Fedorov, doesn’t know the evaporation rate of <em>water</em>!”<br/>
<br/>
Fedorov’s eyes widened with each word until he was staring at Boris in horror as he finally understood he had no recourse to run to Moscow for protection.<br/>
<br/>
“Here is what you will do,” Boris informed him in a deadly tone that brooked no argument. “You are going to inform the council that you are recommending a one hundred kilometer exclusion zone.”<br/>
<br/>
Fedorov nodded his terrified agreement.<br/>
<br/>
“Then,” Boris continued in the same menacing command, “you are going to pack your bags and return to Moscow, informing the council you are more sensitive to radiation than the average man, and can no longer continue your work here.”<br/>
<br/>
Fedorov opened his mouth to speak but no sound came out as he frantically nodded.<br/>
<br/>
“Then you will <em>demand</em> that they either send Ulana Khomyuk or Valery Legasov to us as it is your <em>esteemed</em> and <em>professional</em> recommendation that they are the <em>only</em> two nuclear physicists up to the job.”<br/>
<br/>
“Y-Y-Yes, s-sir,” Fedorov stammered, nodding emphatically. “I will, I w-will tell them n-no one else c-can do it.”<br/>
<br/>
“Good,” Boris said, letting his agreement present itself as a threat as a cold, vicious smile spread over his face. “Because if you don’t, I will personally retrieve a piece of graphite from the roof of that damn reactor and mail it to your house in a lead box, do I make myself clear?”<br/>
<br/>
Fedorov nodded desperately, apparently too frightened to speak.<br/>
<br/>
“Go,” Boris commanded, shifting slightly so the scientist had a path to the door.<br/>
<br/>
Fedorov was gone in less than a second, bolting outside and into the night.<br/>
<br/>
“And to think,” Glukhov said a few seconds later, Boris only realizing a stunned silence had fallen as the man broke it, “I thought you were a pansy bureaucrat when I first met you.”<br/>
<br/>
His comment broke the spell and his men dissolved into raucous laughter, General Pikalov and his men joining in.<br/>
<br/>
As his rage cooled, Boris suddenly remembered the room was completely full of miners and soldiers, and he had over indulged them in his fit of anger.<br/>
<br/>
Embarrassment flooded in and he felt himself flush brightly even as he pretended to be unaffected, which fooled no one.<br/>
<br/>
“You know, Fixer,” a miner in the back, Alexey, called as he stood up, “you had a lot of good lines, but I think the one that takes the cake is ‘nothing the KGB could do to me would be worse than putting up with you’!”<br/>
<br/>
Boris blushed brighter as another wave of laughter spread through the crowd.<br/>
<br/>
“I’m not sure that’s what I said,” he muttered, already starting to craft an excuse for why he needed to leave the room immediately.<br/>
<br/>
“I am!” a soldier, Viktor, added loudly, standing and laughing at Boris’ embarrassment. “But you’re wrong, Alexey, the best line was that Fedorov’s ‘single, feeble, witless, idiotic brain cell’ couldn’t comprehend how pathetic he was compared to our scientist!”<br/>
<br/>
The miners and soldiers around him roared with laughter as they also stood and moved closer, and Boris eyed the door, wondering if they would physically stop him from leaving to keep making fun of him. Probably, he decided in resignation.<br/>
<br/>
“Valid rebuttal,” Pikalov acknowledged, laughing at his bright red friend as he walked closer, “but the crowning line was actually his threat of personally going up to the most deadly place on earth for the sole purpose of mailing that imbecile a piece of graphite.”<br/>
<br/>
The general laughed and clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder, effectively ensuring he was unable to flee as planned.<br/>
<br/>
“I’ve heard a lot of threats in my life, Shcherbina,” the general went on, “but I do believe that is the most impressive I’ve ever come across.”<br/>
<br/>
“I wouldn’t actually <em>do</em> it,” Boris tried to argue, flustered by the new wave of laughter.<br/>
<br/>
“Yes, you would,” Glukhov said knowingly, and Boris scowled at him as the miner also walked closer, wishing he had a valid argument for that statement.<br/>
<br/>
“But they’re all wrong,” Glukhov went on before Boris could respond, “the best thing you told that idiot was that he was no longer allowed to screw us over with his incompetence, not because it would kill the entire continent, but because it would kill <em>your boys</em>.”<br/>
<br/>
He smirked at Boris as everyone grinned and shouted their agreements.<br/>
<br/>
“I’m <em>quite</em> certain I didn’t say that,” Boris insisted, much to everyone’s amusement.<br/>
<br/>
“Anyway,” he sniffed, striving for haughty and unaffected and not quite hitting the mark, “weren’t we supposed to be hearing the daily status report?”<br/>
<br/>
"Alright, alright," Pavel, one of the chief miners, allowed, flapping a hand at the protesting crowd. "He is right, we should give our status reports. Glukhov, Fixer, General, I would like to report that we today we were exposed to evidence that we have the best fixer in the world."<br/>
<br/>
Pavel smiled impishly at Boris, who blushed brightly and tried to send scolding looks at the crowd around him that burst into laughter at the report.<br/>
<br/>
"I've also seen evidence of this!" another miner yelled from the back, and soon the crowd was chorusing their agreement.<br/>
<br/>
Boris had thought he could blush no brighter, but he was proven wrong as his face glowed brightly enough it almost gave off light of its own.<br/>
<br/>
"Sir," one of the sergeants said seriously, after the laughter petered out, sobering the crowd slightly as they refocused on their actual daily reports. "I have a report to make. Our brigade has the best fixer in the State."<br/>
<br/>
The men around him roared with laughter, and Boris decided it was time to make a strategic retreat.<br/>
<br/>
“Yes, well,” Boris started, edging toward the doorway, “as important as this discussion isn’t, I’ve just remembered -,”<br/>
<br/>
“That you’re staying here?” Pikalov asked, setting a firm hand on Boris’ shoulder again with a knowing grin.<br/>
<br/>
“That I have more important things to do than listen to you idiots,” Boris announced haughtily.<br/>
<br/>
“But we’re <em>your boys</em>!” Mikhail argued with joking sincerity.<br/>
<br/>
“What part of soulless politician do you not understand?” Boris sniffed disdainfully, and the noise actually <em>lessened</em> as most of the men laughed hard enough they no longer made noise.<br/>
<br/>
“How you could be one!” Viktor yelled from the back, and Boris shot him an unimpressed look brimming with disapproval.<br/>
<br/>
“Easily, that’s how,” he dismissed. “I was born without a soul or feelings, I was destined for politics.”<br/>
<br/>
“Fixer,” Glukhov cackled, “you have more feelings and more soul than anyone I’ve ever met.”<br/>
<br/>
“You’re all delusional,” he announced, surveying the crowd scornfully. “I’ve never cared about a person a day in my life, enough of the lies and slander.”<br/>
<br/>
“Except your scientist, your general, and your boys!” Pyotr shouted from the far left.<br/>
<br/>
“Pikalov,” Boris deadpanned, “can you get me new miners, these ones are broken.”<br/>
<br/>
"I think it might be our Fixer who is broken if he believes any of the bullshit coming out of his mouth," Pikalov chuckled, "but don't worry, we like him anyway."<br/>
<br/>
"Don't you have a report to make?" Boris scowled.<br/>
<br/>
Pikalov laughed, but conceded the point, getting the meeting back on track as he gave the update of what he had found that day.<br/>
<br/>
It took several minutes, but the heat in Boris' cheeks finally faded as he focused on the new information coming in, glad they didn't have to moderate it for Fedorov's ears.<br/>
<br/>
Life would be more stressful without a scientist, but really, Boris decided, they hadn't really had a scientist in almost a full week, they'd just had an imbecile with an attitude.<br/>
<br/>
The nuclear power plant was still melting down, his scientist was still in Moscow, but they had successfully ousted Fedorov and for the first time in days, things finally started looking up.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you for reading! I would **love** to hear what you think!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. May 16, 1986</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The next morning seemed to dawn brighter and more cheerfully than any in the previous week, and Boris basked in the knowledge that Fedorov was gone. <br/><br/>When he walked the camp as the sun came up, the guards had gleefully informed him that Fedorov had left, well on his way to Moscow.<br/><br/>Excellent.<br/><br/>Boris made his rounds, filled out the daily status report, sent it to the Kremlin, and had just begun to walk across the compound to monitor the meter closest to the tunnel when the low sound of the gate being pulled open met his ears, followed closely by the rumble of a vehicle approaching.<br/><br/>He turned, waiting to see who would approach, and tensed as he registered a large military truck pulling in to the compound.<br/><br/>He tensed further when it pulled all the way up to where he was standing before it parked, and Colonel Kalashnik stormed out of the driver's seat.<br/><br/>“I have never met anyone so annoying in my life,” Kalashnik hissed, turning back to the truck, opening the back and dragging someone bodily out of it, dropping them in a pile on the ground.<br/><br/>The Colonel glared at Boris, spat on the person on the ground, and stormed to the driver’s side before driving away.<br/><br/>Boris stared after him for a moment in confused surprise before he looked down to see who had been dropped at his feet.<br/><br/>His scientist blinked up at him, bruised and slightly worse for the wear, but alive and <em>at Chernobyl</em> with him.<br/><br/>A second of shocked silence hung between them before Boris was diving forward.<br/><br/>“Valera!” he greeted excitedly, hauling the man to his feet and pulling him into a bone crushing hug.<br/><br/>He worried for a moment he would hurt his friend in his enthusiasm, but Valery burrowed into his chest, his own arms coming up to snake around Boris’ back, clutching tightly.<br/><br/>“Sir, who is -,” a soldier asked as he approached Boris, peering at the man he was hugging. Boris didn’t bother to raise his head to see who was speaking, too focused on the man he hadn’t really been sure he would ever see again.<br/><br/>Boris wasn’t entirely sure how, but somehow the awkward, brazen little scientist he was squeezing so desperately had become his best friend.<br/><br/>“Valery?” the soldier gasped in excitement. Boris heard him turn and run a few paces away.<br/><br/>“Everyone!” the man yelled to the compound, “our scientist is back!”<br/><br/>Around the camp, a wave of cheers rippled outward, spreading the word until everyone not actively working descended on the hugging pair.<br/><br/>“Valery!” General Pikalov cried, pulling the shorter man out of the hug with Boris and into one of his own. “Good to have you back, comrade!”<br/><br/>Valery beamed and blushed, not knowing what to say when the General pulled back, sending everyone into fond, relieved laughter.<br/><br/>“You are back!” Glukhov said happily, clapping him on the shoulder and then pulling the happy scientist into yet another hug before pulling back to smile at him.<br/><br/>Valery smiled widely, eyes dropping bashfully to the ground as he blushed still brighter under the continued attention.<br/><br/>"Ha!" Glukhov laughed, patting Valery's cheek affectionately. "Are you embarrassed, my friend? Where is the confidence that told both a Colonel and the Kremlin they could screw themselves?"<br/><br/>"It only shows up when all reason and logic dictates it flee," Boris explained in fond exasperation. "This fool has done this four different times even before all of this mess, he has almost given me a heart attack so many times.<br/><br/>He implied to Gorbachov himself he was stupid, and continually argued with him about the exclusion zone. He is idiotically courageous if someone must be protected and at any other moment, he is a shy, bashful scholar."<br/><br/>"I am not," Valery mumbled, his flushed cheeks directly disproving him, sending another round of laughter through the crowd.<br/><br/>"That is alright, comrade," Glukhov told him fondly, "it adds to your charm."<br/><br/>"I wouldn't say he's charming, I'd say he is an unfortunately endearing pain in my side," Boris refuted, almost giddy with happiness that his scientist had been returned, and the crowd around them laughed harder.<br/><br/>"Don't believe him, Valery," Glukhov confided, "he has driven all of us crazy missing you."<br/><br/>Valery sent his friend a quick, shy smile, and Boris rolled his eyes dramatically.<br/><br/>"They were already crazy without any input from me, and besides, everyone missed you, not just me," Boris tried to brush off, unsuccessfully if the expressions of the men around him were any indication.<br/><br/>"They did?" Valery asked in quiet surprise, looking at Boris in honest confusion.<br/><br/>Boris stared at him in shock. <em>Surely</em> his friend understood how much he meant to people.<br/><br/>He apparently did not, Boris was forced to disbelievingly conclude as his friend continued to stare at him, looking completely bewildered.<br/><br/>There was a quiet that fell over the crowd as everyone stared at him incredulously.<br/><br/>"Legasov, are you serious?" General Pikalov demanded, and Valery swung his confused eyes to him instead.<br/><br/>"He's serious," Pikalov muttered in disbelief, shaking his head.<br/><br/>"Valery," Glukhov chuckled, "you're the dumbest genius I've ever met. Of course we missed you."<br/><br/>"Oh," he said quietly, his wide eyes focusing on the miner, his thick glasses making his confused eyes seem even larger than they were.<br/><br/>"Thank you," he whispered after a pause. “I didn’t really think most people would notice I was gone.”<br/><br/>There was another stunned moment of complete silence before Glukhov broke through it with the subtly of a freight train.<br/><br/>"Valery, you are a <em>fucking</em> idiot," he declared, sounding equally fond and exasperated. "Of course we missed you, Scientist! <em>You</em> were the man that we could trust to actually do calculations and know anything about radiation.<br/><br/><em>You</em> were the one who constantly walked the compound and stayed up all night trying to keep my men safer.<br/><br/><em>You</em> were the one who went head to head with <em>a Colonel</em> and <em>the Kremlin</em> trying to protect us. <em>You</em> are our scientist, of course we missed you!"<br/><br/>Valery stared at him in wide-eyed shock for another moment before he swallowed hard and said, "Thank you," in a shy, sincere whisper.<br/><br/>Boris laughed loudly, feeling lighter and happier than he had in weeks. He walked forward and slung a friendly arm over Valery's shoulders.<br/><br/>"We are glad to have you back, Valera," he said warmly. "We are all so glad to have you back."</p>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks for reading!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. May 20, 1986</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Boris quirked a grin as a wave of miners made their way toward the communal hall where Valery had set up at a table, running through calculations and who knew what else.<br/>
<br/>
The miners and soldiers had been making an effort to get to know the scientist, and Valery seemed both overjoyed to have so many new friends, and utterly overwhelmed at the new expectations of his socializing abilities.<br/>
<br/>
Valery blushed and stuttered and got embarrassed under the prolonged attention, but the workers in the camp clearly found that endearing. Boris could tell even if the scientist couldn’t.<br/>
 <br/>
The miners seemed to have unanimously elected him as their mascot, going out of their way to talk to him and include him, and Boris followed them into the hall to watch the show.<br/>
<br/>
“You actually believe that?” Glukhov demanded loudly in teasing indignation.<br/>
<br/>
“Yeah, ‘cause it’s true!” Alexey shot back with a mischievous grin.<br/>
<br/>
As a group, they walked out of the short hallway and into the main room of the communal building, immediately spotting Valery standing against the wall as he studied a chalkboard.<br/>
<br/>
“You wouldn’t know the truth if it came out and smacked you!” Glukhov asserted, grinning widely as he lead the group over to the scientist without stopping their argument.<br/>
<br/>
“I would, too,” Alexey insisted stubbornly, and Boris snorted at the childish response, standing near the front, against the wall, so he could continue watching the debate unfold.<br/>
<br/>
“Forget the truth, I might just have to smack some common sense into you instead!” Glukhov declared, raising a teasing arm and drawing it back as if he were going to strike, but leaving it there with a grin without actually hitting his friend.<br/>
<br/>
“Scientist,” he said instead, swinging to face Valery without dropping his arm. “We need -,”<br/>
<br/>
His words cut off when Valery looked away from the calculations at the sound of his title, noticed Glukhov’s raised fist, and flinched back with wide eyes.<br/>
<br/>
Silence fell over the crowd at the reaction, watching in concern as Valery’s wide eyes stared at the fist for another long second before moving to Glukhov’s face, his soft, panting breath more obvious in the quiet of the room.<br/>
<br/>
Glukhov stared back in shock before he made the connection to what the problem was and lowered his fist slowly with a heartbroken look on his face.<br/>
<br/>
Valery’s brain finally explained to him what had happened, and his expression instantly flipped from terror to mortification.<br/>
<br/>
“I’m -,” he tried to explain, going red and looking at the crowd’s shoulders instead of their faces, “I’m sorry, I’m -, I’m being stupid. Just ignore me,” he tried to brush off.<br/>
<br/>
“Scientist,” Glukhov said in a voice that was soft and serious and not at all his usual tone. “It’s not stupid and <em>you</em> aren’t the one who should be sorry. I’m sorry, I didn’t think.”<br/>
<br/>
Valery shook his head, still not willing to meet the miner’s eyes.<br/>
<br/>
“I don’t need special treatment,” he muttered, embarrassment growing. “I’ll get over it. No one else does that, I’ll -,”<br/>
<br/>
“No one else does that,” Glukhov cut over him in a kind, firm voice, “because no one else here has stood up to the KGB and paid the price. It does not make you weak.”<br/>
<br/>
Valery slowly brought his eyes up to meet Glukhov’s, relaxing slightly at the lack of judgment in them. He flicked a look around the crowd, blushing slightly brighter, but relaxing further when he saw the same understanding reflected in their eyes.<br/>
<br/>
Looking to his side, he finally spotted Boris, who smiled warmly at his friend as he pushed himself off the wall and moved closer.<br/>
<br/>
“They’re right, Valera,” he said firmly, laying an arm over the shorter man’s shoulders and pulling him into his side, amused when the scientist automatically pressed into him. “I do need your help to explain what they’re <em>not</em> right about, though.”<br/>
<br/>
He sent a smirk at the miners, his eyes telling them to play along, before he grinned down at the scientist.<br/>
<br/>
“Today when they were going on shift,” he informed his friend seriously as he shamelessly made up his next statement, “they told me they think atom is spelled Adam after the man who first found them.”<br/>
<br/>
As expected, all of Valery’s embarrassment fell away to be replaced with amused indignation.<br/>
<br/>
“Surely not,” he said with a hint of a laugh, looking at the crowd in question.<br/>
<br/>
Glukhov picked up his cue flawlessly and threw a vindicated arm toward the scientist, slower than his usual speed as he gave the scientist time to register what he was doing without making it obvious.<br/>
<br/>
“Right?” he demanded, as if Valery had just agreed with him. “Can you believe Fixer? He was going on about how it’s <em>atom</em>, what a load of bullshit.”<br/>
<br/>
Valery snorted, doing his best to smother his subsequent laugh in his hand, which did nothing to actually hide the action, but did spark a wave of fond grins as the miners watched the effort.<br/>
<br/>
“I’m sorry, Glukhov,” he said as apologetically as he could manage in his amusement, “but Boris is correct, it is atom, not Adam.”<br/>
<br/>
“Scientist!” Glukhov gasped, betrayed, pushing Valery’s amusement into quiet laughter.<br/>
<br/>
“Scientist,” Alexey added in scandalized horror. “How <em>dare</em> you?”<br/>
<br/>
Valery laughed harder, relaxing further into Boris’ side as he surveyed the dramatically protesting miners.<br/>
<br/>
“That can’t possibly be right,” Erik asserted knowingly. “You expect us to believe someone named <em>Atom</em> discovered them? Who names their child <em>Atom</em>?”<br/>
<br/>
The other miners chorused their agreement as Valery laughed harder.<br/>
<br/>
“It is named atom from the Greek word atamos,” he explained, “meaning ‘that which cannot be split’ because the Greek philosopher Democritus theorized that at some point nature will reach a point where it is unable to be split into anything smaller.”<br/>
<br/>
“No, that can’t be right,” Akim, one of the youngest miners, insisted jokingly. “I think you just didn’t like this Adam guy. Did you go to school with him, too?”<br/>
<br/>
“How old do you think I am?” Valery asked, amusement dancing in his eyes. “I have not been alive since two thousand five hundred BC when Democritus theorized the atom, or since the eighteen hundreds when the work of Johnathan Dalton and Joseph Thompson re-introduced it.”<br/>
<br/>
Akim peered at him speculatively.<br/>
<br/>
“Are you <em>sure</em>?” he asked teasingly, sending everyone into a wave of laughter.<br/>
<br/>
“I mean,” he went on impishly, “most of you old guys have been around since the dawn of time, so it doesn’t seem that unreasonable to think you met him.”<br/>
<br/>
“Hey!” Glukhov protested, audible over the surge of disagreements from everyone in the room.<br/>
<br/>
“Just because <em>you</em> are barely out of infancy,” Danyl said, hooking a loose arm around Akim’s neck and messing up his hair as he protested, “doesn’t mean the rest of us are old!”<br/>
<br/>
“I’m seventeen!” Akim argued, wiggling out of the headlock indignantly. “That’s not an infant, and it’s old enough to understand that you guys are <em>ancient</em>!”<br/>
<br/>
“What was that, youngin’?” Glukhov asked, raising a hand to his ear as if straining to hear. “You’re young and energetic so you’re want to take <em>two</em> shifts?”<br/>
<br/>
The men around him laughed louder as Akim raised his arms in surrender.<br/>
<br/>
“I meant to say that I’m old enough to understand that all the men except the young and spry and incredibly handsome crew chief, Glukhov, are ancient,” he amended in mock seriousness.<br/>
<br/>
Glukhov grinned and nodded his pretentious acceptance while the men around him objected loudly.<br/>
<br/>
"Much better," Glukhov said before turning back to Valery and Boris.<br/>
<br/>
"Scientist, Fixer, did you already eat your dinner?"<br/>
<br/>
Boris grinned and shook his head, amused by the fact that the miners had decided both he and Valery needed managing to ensure they ate three meals and slept at night.<br/>
<br/>
"Um," Valery said thoughtfully, brow furrowing as he tried to remember.<br/>
<br/>
Glukhov rolled his eyes.<br/>
<br/>
"Scientist, if you do not remember, then you did not. Come on, food time."<br/>
<br/>
He stepped forward and prodded at both Boris and Valery until they started walking toward the make-shift cafeteria, sharing bemused looks as the rest of the miners fell into step behind them, already arguing about some new topic Boris couldn't be bothered to figure out.<br/>
<br/>
Life at Chernobyl was still soul crushingly stressful, but the new atmosphere that had arrived with Valery was a welcome change from the pall of misery it had replaced.<br/>
<br/>
Boris laughed, allowing himself to be shepherded toward the food line, glad that if he had to suffer through this with anyone, it was with his scientist and his boys.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks for reading!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. May 24, 1986</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So, this is story slightly changes the way that Ulana met Valery and Boris, mostly because I misremembered the scene when I was writing it. In the show, Pikalov is the soldier that shows her in, and I completely forgot that he was there, so for this, just pretend it was some underling and not Pikalov. Other than that, the scene is exactly the same.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“The miners are making good progress on the tunnel, but we must look ahead to the next challenge,” Valery said, sounding exhausted.<br/>
<br/>
Boris sighed heavily, but nodded.<br/>
<br/>
“What is the next challenge?” he asked, trying not to let the hint of apathetic despair slip into his voice.<br/>
<br/>
“The roof,” Valery said reluctantly. “The graphite on the roof is still out, and we cannot build a containment building over the reactor until we have cleared the graphite off and back inside the core.”<br/>
<br/>
Boris let that statement hang in the air as he tried to push past how monumentally impossible that challenge seemed.<br/>
<br/>
Impossible or not, they’d have to do it.<br/>
<br/>
“Ok,” Boris said with another sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It’s too radioactive to send people up there, right?”<br/>
<br/>
Valery nodded decisively.<br/>
<br/>
“Much,” he confirmed.<br/>
<br/>
“Then, what?” Boris asked, feeling a wave of exhaustion crash over him. “Remote control bulldozers? We used them in Afghanistan.”<br/>
<br/>
“No,” Valery shook his head regretfully. “They would be too heavy, the roof would collapse.<br/>
<br/>
At least it’s currently almost all at one level. If the roof collapses it will be scattered throughout the inner levels, and it would be considerably harder to find all the pieces where they fell, let alone put them back, and it may cause a spike in the ground radiation levels as it is more evenly distributed near our level.”<br/>
<br/>
Boris sighed, having suspected it would cause some new level of catastrophe.<br/>
<br/>
“So how will we do it?” Boris asked, looking to his friend for the solution as he did for every seemingly-impossible task.<br/>
<br/>
As usual, the scientist delivered.<br/>
<br/>
“We’ll use a lunar rover,” Valery announced. “We will cover it in lead, and it will have the protection it needs without being so heavy it collapses the roof.”<br/>
<br/>
“Really?” Boris asked skeptically, studying his friend’s tense expression. “A <em>lunar rover</em>? And <em>that</em> will work?”<br/>
<br/>
“I -,” Valery’s voice caught in his throat and he swallowed hard, sending a crack through his mask of tense calmness.<br/>
<br/>
“I -,” Valery tried again, his voice wetter than it had been a moment ago, the expression on his face fraying as he tried to shove down the panic Boris could suddenly see in his eyes.<br/>
<br/>
Boris wiped the doubt and skepticism off his face, but it was too late, Valery’s already shaky hold on his ever growing fear had shattered, and Boris watched at a loss of what to do as his friend lost control for the first time since he had met him.<br/>
<br/>
“I don’t know,” Valery whispered, and suddenly there were tears in his eyes, then streaming down his face.<br/>
<br/>
“I don’t know!” he repeated, sounding equal parts terrified and devastated.<br/>
<br/>
His tears fell in full force, and his breath hitched with the force of his sobs as he tried to go on.<br/>
<br/>
“I don’t know, Boris!” he sobbed, bringing a hand to cover his face, which did nothing to stem the tears. “I don’t know if it will work, it does in my calculations, but the -, my -, the calculations only as strong as the one who wrote them and -, and -, and I already messed up on the water tanks!”<br/>
<br/>
Valery gave up any pretense of covering his face to hide the tears and brought his devastated eyes up to meet Boris’.<br/>
<br/>
“If Ulana had not come I would have caused nuclear holocaust for the whole world! It would have been my fault!” he sobbed, his breath stuttering as the panic that statement induced set in.<br/>
<br/>
“I -, I didn’t think about the tanks, I didn’t think about it being too hot for the miners to work at their full efficiency, I didn’t <em>think</em>!<br/>
<br/>
It is all on me and what if -, what if I kill them? What I murder the men who came here to help on <em>my</em> request? What if I kill <em>you</em>, and the General, and the <em>whole world</em> because I’m not good enough to -, to -,”<br/>
<br/>
His own sobbing cut him off as he cried too hard to speak, and Boris had heard enough.<br/>
<br/>
“Valery,” he said gently, stepping forward and pulling the shaking man into a comforting hug, “come here, Valera.”<br/>
<br/>
Valery huddled into the hug, burrowing as close as was humanly possible, and though he was still crying, his heaving sobs had at least calmed enough to let him breathe.<br/>
<br/>
Boris buried one hand in Valery’s hair, pulling him closer, while his other ran soothingly down his back.<br/>
<br/>
“Valera, listen to me,” he shushed gently. “It is not all on you, and whatever happens will not be your fault. You forget, I’m here too, Pikalov is here too, the council holds responsibility as well.<br/>
<br/>
Just because you stepped forward and accomplished the impossible when it was asked of you does not mean that this disaster was your fault, and you are not at fault if you cannot continue delivering miracles.<br/>
<br/>
<em>You</em> did not cause the reactor to blow, you weren’t even in the province, but <em>you</em> were the <em>only</em> person who suggested to the council that the core was exposed.<br/>
<br/>
Without you, the world would have <em>already</em> been dead a dozen times over.<br/>
<br/>
We all would have died as the fire raged, killing us with the smoke before it got a chance to with explosion.<br/>
<br/>
We would have died if you had not stopped the fire from spreading to the other reactors. We all would have died if you and Ulana had not stopped the water tanks from exploding.<br/>
<br/>
The world would have died if you had not realized we needed to extend the exclusion zone and reinforce our protections, and no one would have even thought to attempt this heat transfer without your brains.<br/>
<br/>
If these men die, if I die, if anyone in this operation dies, it will not be the fault of the man who came voluntarily to deliver miracles, it will be the fault of the people who caused this disaster in the first place, and the fault of the council that cannot stop trying to save face long enough to save its people.”<br/>
<br/>
“What if I’m not good enough?” Valery asked in a heartbroken whisper, gasping slightly through his tears.<br/>
<br/>
“Whatever happens, Valera, whatever the outcome, you are good enough and you are better than this world had any right to ask of you,” Boris said firmly. “Even if we fail, and the continent is poisoned, you, Valery Legasov, saved the <em>planet</em> by averting first the fire and then the explosion.<br/>
<br/>
Even if we are only partially successful, and the Soviet Union is destroyed, you saved the <em>continent</em>.<br/>
<br/>
Even if myself or any of the men here are lost, you saved our lives a dozen times over.<br/>
<br/>
Just because you identified the problem does not mean you are responsible for the damage.</p><p>You had absolutely no involvement in creating the problem, but you are giving everything to solve it, and there is no possible way for you to be better than that.”<br/>
<br/>
“Thank you,” Valery whispered through his tears, clutching tightly at Boris back and pushing his face further into Boris’ chest.<br/>
<br/>
Boris continued running a hand down the scientist’s back, letting Valery cry all of the fear and stress and misery into his chest, his other hand running soothingly through his friend’s hair.<br/>
<br/>
He let his gaze wander around the room for a moment and froze when he saw the doorway.<br/>
<br/>
General Pikalov and Glukhov were standing in it, each surrounded by dozens of their men, all shocked and silent.<br/>
<br/>
Boris’ eyes burned protectively, raising his chin in defiant challenge, daring them to comment on the fact that Valery was currently sobbing into his chest.<br/>
<br/>
The men in the doorway dropped their eyes, shoulder rounding as they silently conveyed they wouldn’t be disturbing the comfort Valery so obviously needed.</p><p>They shuffled backward and out of the building, slowly and as quietly as they could, and Boris nodded approvingly, turning his attention back to his friend.<br/>
<br/>
He rocked them slightly, continuing to rub the scientist’s back as his tears poured out.<br/>
<br/>
Valery cried for several long minutes, but eventually his tears gave way to quiet sniffs as he stayed burrowed in Boris’ chest.<br/>
<br/>
“When will the men arrive for the daily update?” he asked in a quiet, rough whisper.<br/>
<br/>
“I canceled it today,” Boris said, rubbing a hand down the scientists back again. “Pikalov was still out on his rounds, Glukhov was grumpy and said there were no changes to report, so I told them to call it a night.”<br/>
<br/>
“Oh,” Valery said softly. “Ok.”<br/>
<br/>
He stayed where he was for several more seconds before he pulled back to stand in front of Boris, eyes low, a blush growing in his cheeks.<br/>
<br/>
“Is this a problem we must solve tonight?” Boris asked gently.<br/>
<br/>
Valery sniffed quietly and shook his head, keeping his eyes on the floor.<br/>
<br/>
“Are there any imminent disasters that you know about that need to be solved tonight?”<br/>
<br/>
Valery shook his head again.<br/>
<br/>
“Alright,” Boris said, equal parts firm and gentle, “then you are going to sleep.”<br/>
<br/>
Valery looked up in surprise, red-rimmed eyes darting to his stacks of calculations before returning to Boris.<br/>
<br/>
“No,” Boris argued with a warm smile, sliding an arm over Valery’s shoulders and tucking the shorter man into his side, “you need sleep, Valera.”<br/>
<br/>
Valery went willingly when Boris walked toward the door. He tensed when they reached the door to the outside, seeming to prepare himself for something, but he relaxed again as Boris led them outside without retracting his arm.<br/>
<br/>
The compound was quiet and empty, and they made quick time to Valery’s room.<br/>
<br/>
Boris pulled the blankets back and Valery sat heavily on his bed, completely exhausted.<br/>
<br/>
A long second later he tiredly reached down and pulled off his shoes, falling sideways when he was done until he was laying down comfortably when Boris nudged him toward the pillow.<br/>
<br/>
“Sleep, Valera,” Boris commanded softly. “We will do the impossible in the morning.”<br/>
<br/>
There was a small, shy smile on Valery’s lips as he pulled his blanket higher and sent Boris one more grateful look that had Boris smiling affectionately.<br/>
<br/>
“Thank you, Borja,” Valery said softly, letting his exhausted eyes slip closed.<br/>
<br/>
Boris’ smile warmed even further, as he laid a hand on Valery’s shoulder.<br/>
<br/>
“You’re welcome, my friend,” he whispered, huffing a small laugh as Valery relaxed into sleep almost immediately.<br/>
<br/>
He stepped back, shaking his head at the scientist, gave the sleeping man one more fond look before he quietly left the trailer, shutting the door softly behind him.<br/>
<br/>
He turned to face the compound, contemplating his next move in the stillness of the night.<br/>
<br/>
His friend would no doubt be embarrassed the next day, and Boris made a mental note to find a reason to visit his room the next morning so they could smooth the awkwardness over in private rather than exacerbating the problem by having Valery grow more embarrassed as he was awkward in front of the others.<br/>
<br/>
Though he’d no doubt be awkward, Valery knew Boris, and knew Boris would not hold such a moment against him, and Boris was confident they would be able to move past the issue without any significant problems.<br/>
<br/>
That would not be the case if Valery found out the men had witnessed his breakdown. With the grace and composure the scientist usually handled being embarrassed with, Boris was slightly worried Valery would march himself into the reactor core if he was mocked for his reaction.<br/>
<br/>
Boris needed to find Glukhov and Pikalov and ensure they understood that no one was to be permitted to tease Valery about it, even in good natured humor.<br/>
<br/>
The two would most likely be in their smaller planning quarters if they had not returned to the communal hall, and he doubted they had, so he turned to his left and made his way to the small command post they had set up where they could leave their maps and chalkboards lying about without being in the way of everyone else as they would in the communal hall.<br/>
<br/>
He opened the door, unsurprised to find them both inside, and shut the door firmly behind himself as he walked all the way into the room.<br/>
<br/>
They had obviously been expecting him, a third chair was pulled out to face theirs, an empty glass next to the two vodka filled ones on the nearby table.<br/>
<br/>
“How much did you hear?” Boris asked, sounding resigned as he dropped into a chair, completing the small triangle.<br/>
<br/>
The general opened his mouth to respond, but closed it again with a sigh.<br/>
<br/>
“The roof is radioactive but we can’t put bulldozers up there,” Glukhov answered quietly, “it’s too heavy. Lunar rover might work.<br/>
<br/>
We came in quietly because we could hear you talking as we walked down the hall and we didn’t want to interrupt, it sounded like an important discussion.”<br/>
<br/>
Boris sighed, pinching his nose.<br/>
<br/>
“And all the men were there the whole time as well?” he asked.<br/>
<br/>
Both the general and the miner nodded apologetically.<br/>
<br/>
“If anyone makes fun of him for it, if anyone so much as mentions it to him, I will have them shot,” Boris told the other two fiercely, meeting first Pikalov’s, the Glukhov’s eyes so they could see how serious he was about his threat.<br/>
<br/>
Pikalov met his eyes squarely before he said, “If anyone makes fun of him, I will be the one to shoot them.”<br/>
<br/>
Boris’ shoulders loosened slightly and his expression relaxed, quirking the barest hint of a smile as he nodded at the general.<br/>
<br/>
He let the trace of a smile fall away as he turned to Glukhov, knowing the man was protective of his miners, and not generally protective of others’ feelings.<br/>
<br/>
Glukhov also met his gaze, his eyes sad and sympathetic.<br/>
<br/>
“I would not stop the general,” he said softly. “My men have no desire to make fun of our scientist, but if they did I wouldn’t stop Pikalov from his revenge.”<br/>
<br/>
He sighed and reached into his pocket to pull a cigarette from the pack, rolling it in his fingers as he tucked the rest of the pack back in his pocket, without lighting it.<br/>
<br/>
“No one here deserves what is happening to them,” he declared to the cigarette he still rolled between his fingers, “but least of all Valery.<br/>
<br/>
He should be in his lab doing research and being his awkward scholar self, not being forced to almost singlehandedly come up with every scientific solution we need to keep the world from ending, while also dealing with the self-righteous jackasses in the Kremlin and who knows what else.”<br/>
<br/>
Boris let out a long breath, grateful he would not have to convince them that the behavior could not be tolerated.<br/>
<br/>
Glukhov finally looked up, meeting Boris eyes with no hesitation, but a heavy, serious look on his face.<br/>
<br/>
“The men have already independently decided they won’t be discussing the matter, but I will spread the word tonight through the miners that it is not to be even mentioned to our scientist.”<br/>
<br/>
“Thank you,” Boris said gratefully, his shoulders lowering in relief at the easy agreement.<br/>
<br/>
Glukhov twitched a smile and nodded.<br/>
<br/>
“I will tell the soldiers tonight,” Pikalov volunteered, and Boris sent him a grateful smile as well.<br/>
<br/>
He leaned back in his seat, letting a comfortable silence fall over them.<br/>
<br/>
“I would have told them anyway,” Glukhov said, breaking the quiet a few minutes later.<br/>
<br/>
Pikalov and Boris turned to look at the wry smile growing on his face.<br/>
<br/>
“I was afraid if anyone told him we’d been there he would spontaneously combust from awkwardness,” Glukhov confided in a teasing tone.<br/>
<br/>
The other two snorted, nodding their agreement.<br/>
<br/>
“I came to find you tonight,” Boris chuckled, “because I was afraid he would walk himself off Masha and into the reactor core if anyone mentions it to him tomorrow.”<br/>
<br/>
The amusement bloomed into full blown laughter as the miner and general nodded along.<br/>
<br/>
“He might have,” Pikalov acknowledged when his laughter faded out, a bright smile remaining on his face that seemed out of place after perpetually seeing the tense frown that was his usual expression.<br/>
<br/>
Boris rolled his eyes at the thought of his friend.<br/>
<br/>
“He probably would have,” he sighed in exasperation, wondering if his friend would ever learn how to socialize like a human person, or if his reactions were etched into his DNA and unchangeable.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't think I have ever met a man so shy," Pikalov commented with an affectionately exasperated shake of his head that had Boris and Glukhov chuckling and nodding along.<br/>
<br/>
"I have not spent much time around scientists," Glukhov told the other two, his smile growing fond, "are they all like ours?"<br/>
<br/>
"No," Boris said decisively. "Well," he reconsidered, "many are shy and awkward, but not always. Ulana Khomyuk, I don't think she has a shy bone in her body. Do you know how we met her?"<br/>
<br/>
Glukhov shook his head, looking interested.<br/>
<br/>
"Actually," Pikalov said, leaning forward, "I've been meaning to ask how you met her. She wasn't here in the beginning," he explained to Glukhov as a side note, "she just appeared one day and was on the team, and I never really got the story about how or why."<br/>
<br/>
Glukhov looked even more interested by the interjection and turned his attention back to Boris who was rolling his eyes.<br/>
<br/>
"It's hard to believe I've only known that woman for three weeks," Boris said, shaking his head in disbelief. "It feels like I've been working with her and Valery for years. But anyway, as some background -,"<br/>
<br/>
"Wait, first," Glukhov cut in, holding up a hand to stop Boris, "How many years have you known Valery?"<br/>
<br/>
Boris and Pikalov snorted in unison.<br/>
<br/>
"Years," Pikalov scoffed in amusement as Boris drained his vodka and refilled it with an amused chuckle.<br/>
<br/>
"Let's see," he said, "today is... May twenty-fourth? So... I’ve known Valery for twenty-eight days," he decided, unable to believe he had lived so much life in only four short weeks.<br/>
<br/>
"Twenty-eight days?" Glukhov parroted in disbelief. "You act as though you've been friends since birth."<br/>
<br/>
Boris huffed another laugh.<br/>
<br/>
"No, the first time I ever spoke to Valery was April twenty-sixth, I called him in to consult if the Kremlin had any questions on the physics of the situation."<br/>
<br/>
He rolled his eyes at how naive he had been. He had told Valery not to argue with policy and to only speak if asked a question about science, and he had actually expected the man to comply.<br/>
<br/>
Boris sighed, letting his head rest on the back of the chair to look straight up as his eyes slipped closed.<br/>
<br/>
"I am a different person than I was two months ago," he said, the statement heavy, but Pikalov laughed.<br/>
<br/>
Boris turned his head to crack an eye open and look at the laughing man as he poured another round of vodka.<br/>
<br/>
"That's the truth," Pikalov said, raising his glass to toast Boris before he threw the shot back with a grimace. "One of the main differences is that this Boris Shcherbina actually likes Valery Legasov."<br/>
<br/>
Boris joined in the laughter, sitting up straighter and reaching for his glass again to raise it in a toast and drain it as well.<br/>
<br/>
"He didn't like Valery?" Glukhov asked, sounding as though the concept was incomprehensible.<br/>
<br/>
"Didn't like is putting it mildly," Pikalov informed him with a teasing smirk in Boris' direction.<br/>
<br/>
"Ok, yes," Boris admitted, rolling his eyes for what felt like the hundredth time that night. "I more or less hated him for the first few days I knew him."<br/>
<br/>
"He was more on the side of <em>more</em> than <em>less</em>," Pikalov clarified, enjoying his friend's exasperation.<br/>
<br/>
"Valery is the most goddamn adorable grown ass man I have ever met. There are puppies less endearing than that scientist, how is it possible to look at that nerd and hate him?" Glukhov asked, dumbfounded.<br/>
<br/>
"Well," Boris said, trying to push down his smirk as he remembered their first meeting, "Valery is annoyingly endearing and unfortunately adorable to the average comrade, but it just so happened that when I first met him, I was the Kremlin official he was telling to screw themself, as you like to put it."<br/>
<br/>
Glukhov laughed, sitting back in his seat as more of the pieces slid into place.<br/>
<br/>
Boris nodded along with his silent understanding.<br/>
<br/>
"I was a naive idiot, and I, in my pre-Valery innocence, thought to myself, 'there's been an issue at a nuclear power plant. I know <em>nothing</em> about nuclear power plants, but I will be expected to answer the Kremlin's questions. I should bring a reference scientist who will sit quietly in the corner and be well behaved and only speak to answer the questions we have'."<br/>
<br/>
Boris stared at the ceiling in long-suffering exasperation as the other two roared with laughter.<br/>
<br/>
"I was innocent and naive," he defended lightly, the miner and general still howling with laughter at Boris’ past self.<br/>
<br/>
"As you can imagine," he went on, eyes bright with amusement, "it went nothing like that. He sat directly across from me in the middle of the hierarchy instead of at the far end where I had set a chair for him, he was <em>not</em> well behaved, and we had no questions for him but he insisted on speaking anyway."<br/>
<br/>
"Story of his life," Glukhov choked out between laughs.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah," Boris agreed with a put upon sigh, pushing the other two men's amusement still higher.<br/>
<br/>
"I called him that morning and I specifically and explicitly told him he was <em>only</em> there to answer my questions, and he was <em>only</em> to speak if he was spoken to, and then like an idiot, I <em>believed</em> him when he said, 'Oh, um, ok'," Boris lamented, sparking a new wave of hilarity from the other two.<br/>
<br/>
"Like <em>even more of an idiot</em> I believed the plant manager when he assured me the situation was under control, and the highest radiation level was three point six Roentgen, which is the equivalent of a chest x-ray, so I announced that to Gorbachev and the council and began what I believed would be a short process of forgetting that Valery even existed."<br/>
<br/>
Boris shook his head and poured another finger of vodka, downing it quickly as the men beside him laughed hard enough they were no longer making sound.<br/>
<br/>
"Gorbachev said he was pleased, he said the meeting was adjourned, and then Valery fucking Legasov slammed a hand on the table and announced it was <em>not</em>."<br/>
<br/>
"He didn't," Glukhov choked, cackling harder.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, he did," Boris assured him. "Well, first he tried to do his little stammer thing where he was going, 'um, well, actually' and no one paid him any mind so he flipped the switch into pain-in-my-ass-Valery and slammed his hand down and announced he had a concern.<br/>
<br/>
He then proceeds to stand up and tell me that three point six Roentgen is not, by the way, the equivalent of one chest x-ray but four <em>hundred</em> x-rays, but that number is wrong for a different reason, it was the highest reading you can take on a low level dosimeter’.... I was less than pleased by his addition,” Boris deadpanned.<br/>
<br/>
"I told him he was being an alarmist and he shot back 'it's not alarmist if it's a fact!' and then had the audacity to look confused as to why Gorbachev was mad at him for full-out yelling at council members."<br/>
<br/>
Boris paused for a moment as the laughter became too loud to hear over, and then continued when it quieted a few moments later.<br/>
<br/>
"You could actually <em>see</em> his mental gears finally clicking into place as he remembered he was supposed to be respectful to the Kremlin officials."<br/>
<br/>
Glukhov howled with laughter as Pikalov wiped the tears from his eyes, wondering how their friend had made it to adulthood.<br/>
<br/>
“So we have <em>another</em> fight, he convinces Gorbachev <em>he’s</em> right, and the Gorbachev ordered me to go do an assessment and report back. </p><p>That was fine, I was fine with that, I was not fine with the fact that he ordered me to bring Valery.<br/>
<br/>
Valery wasn’t overly pleased with the arrangement either, but he almost immediately accepted it whereas I sat and stewed for several more minutes before I gave in and informed him he’d be coming as if it were my idea.”<br/>
<br/>
He paused to let the others laugh, enjoying the happy sounds that were a rarity at Chernobyl.<br/>
<br/>
“<em>And then</em>,” Boris continued indignantly, “he had the <em>nerve</em> to revert back to the obnoxiously cute and shy Valery while I still wanted to hate him!" Boris finished with an emphatic wave of his arm. "Do you know how hard it is to hate him when he's being a bashful little nerd? It's impossible! Actually impossible, I would know, I gave it my best shot!"<br/>
<br/>
"To tell the truth," Glukhov said, gasping slightly as he tried to get his breath back, "I tried, too. I wanted to hate both of you for calling us in. We didn't know what it was, but we knew it was dangerous.<br/>
<br/>
I stewed the whole way to the plant about how I was going to hate you both, and how you were undoubtedly greedy, pretentious assholes who didn't understand what you were asking of my men, and I was going to set you both straight.<br/>
<br/>
The fact that you were both on site, in the thick of things, put a dent in that plan, and then that fucking shy smile of Valery's shattered the rest. I was so annoyed.”<br/>
<br/>
“You have my complete and utter sympathy,” Boris assured him, pushing the vodka closer to him.<br/>
<br/>
Glukhov nodded his thanks with a grin as he accepted the bottle, pouring himself another shot.<br/>
<br/>
“He did this little fucking smile instead of saying hello,” Glukhov told Pikalov, “and I already knew I was in trouble, but then his <em>face</em> when I asked about the depth was so goddamn fucking sad the first thought that popped into my head was ‘god fucking damn it, I can’t be mean to this one’.... Fucking jackass puppy scientist,” he finished in a petulant mumble, downing another shot.<br/>
<br/>
“Yeah,” Pikalov agreed, pulling the bottle closer to himself so he could pour a little more. “He got me, too.”<br/>
<br/>
He sighed and threw back the shot.<br/>
<br/>
“Not even two hours in and my fucking brain just automatically went ‘protect this one’.”<br/>
<br/>
Boris snorted as Pikalov shook his head in annoyed resignation.<br/>
<br/>
“When Bryukhanov told him he was spreading misinformation?”<br/>
<br/>
“No,” Pikalov shook his head, “although I think that was the seed of the problem. No, it was after you yelled at him.”<br/>
<br/>
Boris laughed, nodding along, and Glukhov stared at Boris in mock disbelief.<br/>
<br/>
“How is it possible to yell at him?” he asked, only mostly joking.<br/>
<br/>
“It was the first time he tried to convince me to go directly against the orders of the Kremlin,” Boris explained fondly, unable to believe he could feel nostalgic for something that happened less than a month ago.<br/>
<br/>
“I had been ordered to contain the panic and do an assessment. I was only to assess, not alert civilians, not explain to the workers. Of course Valery’s first sentence after he’s convinced me the core was on the ground was that we needed to evacuate Pripyat.”<br/>
<br/>
Glukhov snorted loudly and Pikalov picked up the retelling.<br/>
<br/>
“Boris told him 'that's my decision to make' in his 'I'm a deputy chairman, don't question me' voice, and with <em>no</em> hesitation, Valery looked him in the eye and said 'then make it'."<br/>
<br/>
Glukhov guffawed loudly as Boris reluctantly laughed as well, unable to maintain his pseudo-disapproval he’d been trying to hold on to.<br/>
<br/>
"So I yelled at him about how I was in charge and he should stick to the science,” Boris continued the story, “and he turned into the most convincing rendition of a kicked puppy I have ever seen," Boris rolled his eyes.<br/>
<br/>
"It's true," Pikalov added in support. “I don’t believe in coddling people, I much prefer to either leave them be or tell them to get their ass in gear and do something about it, but he...<br/>
<br/>
So Shcherbina yelled at him and then went to go get sand and boron, and Valery just stood there where Boris left him like a fucking kicked puppy.<br/>
<br/>
He looked like he was just going to stand there all night and be sad, so I opened my mouth to tell him to get over it and get moving, but somewhere between brain and mouth the message changed all on its own and I ended up telling him there was a hotel in town, and I’d <em>drive</em> him there and that Shcherbina was just stressed it would be fine.”<br/>
<br/>
Boris joined Glukhov in laughing at the resigned look of annoyance on Pikalov’s face.<br/>
<br/>
“Anyone who can spend more than twenty four hours with him and still hate him is <em>evil</em> and that is just a fact,” Pikalov told them seriously.<br/>
<br/>
"Agreed," Boris said emphatically.<br/>
<br/>
"Agreed," Glukhov added with a firm nod.<br/>
<br/>
"So how did you meet Khomyuk?" Pikalov asked after a moment of silence.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, right," Boris nodded, remembering how the conversation had started. "So, we're two days in and I have a tentative truce with Valery -,"<br/>
<br/>
"By that he means, Valery looked so sad every time Shcherbina was mean to him Shcherbina was unable to continue being mean to him, and Valery shyly and awkwardly decided he had a new friend,” Pikalov told Glukhov in an audible undertone.<br/>
<br/>
Glukhov snorted as Boris shot Pikalov a light glare.<br/>
<br/>
"As I said," Boris said pointedly, "Valery and I had a tentative truce. </p><p>We had started dropping sand and boron on the fire to put it out since you can't drop water on it.</p><p>Problem is, if you drop sand and boron into a nuclear waste pit that is over two thousand degrees hot, you make lava."<br/>
<br/>
"Lava?" Glukhov echoed in faint horror.<br/>
<br/>
"Lava," Boris confirmed. "Now, Valera knew the lava was going to happen, but it was a lesser of two evils.<br/>
<br/>
We had to get the fire out, or the winds would have long since carried the radiation around the globe by now. He knew lava was going to happen, and he knew we'd need to do this heat exchanger, the problem was, he was working under incorrect assumptions. Thankfully, that's where Ulana came in."<br/>
<br/>
He took a drink of his vodka, feeling a wave of gratitude that she had put everything together so quickly.<br/>
<br/>
"So, she worked at a nuclear research lab. Apparently, a co-worker opened a window and their lab’s dosimeter went off, so being the scientist she is, she grabbed a quick sample and then shut the window. </p><p>She said she thought it was a bomb at first, but the test showed elements that would have come from Soviet fuel, so she realized a nuclear reactor must have melted down.<br/>
<br/>
She was in Minsk, so she called Ignalina first, their reactor was fine. </p><p>She called Chernobyl to see if they had any information, but the phone never stopped ringing, so she realized they must be the plant in meltdown.</p><p>She tried to tell Deputy Secretary Garanin, he blew her off, but luckily she convinced the secretary on the way out.<br/>
<br/>
She called the secretary when she was back in Minsk, and the woman told her that we were dropping sand and boron on the fire, and since she couldn't get ahold of us, she decided she needed to come in person."<br/>
<br/>
"That's not unreasonable," Pikalov commented.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, that's not the unreasonable part," Boris told him. "Oh no, that's fine. So she got in her car and drove from Minsk to Chernobyl, but the road was blocked and guarded.<br/>
<br/>
The guards told her that if she tried to go any further, they would arrest her, and she said 'perfect,' got herself arrested, and then demanded to be taken to the highest person in charge, which would have been you if you hadn't been out doing checks that night.<br/>
<br/>
The guards were going to just put her in a cell, but she starts announcing to the world that she knew the reactor was exposed, she knew the core had exploded, and she knew the reactor was currently melting down.<br/>
<br/>
Valery had very specifically called the plant personnel that had been on the scene the night of the twenty-sixth to check that the tanks were empty, and they all swore up and down that they were, so he ran his calculations and found that we had a month to get this heat exchanger in.<br/>
<br/>
Then Ulana comes marching in like she owns the place despite the fact she was arrested at the time, tells Valery he's wrong, the tanks <em>were</em> empty, past tense. </p><p>He hadn't realized that with all the valves open to drain the tank originally, any water from the fire hoses would drain in to the bubbler tanks and fill them up. The pipes had also all burst, which didn't help matters.<br/>
<br/>
Apparently the tanks being full meant that when the lava ate through the bio shield, the water would instantly vaporize, causing a thermal explosion of two to four megatons, which would not only have enough force to spread the radiation through the whole world, but it would also be enough force to blow the lids off the other three reactors and we would have an additional three problems at this severity.<br/>
<br/>
In short, the world would have been gone, there would be nothing we could do, not that any of us would have survived the first day or so even if you had still been at the mine."<br/>
<br/>
"What did you do?" Glukhov asked quietly, a tinge of horror in his voice at how close the world had come to ending.<br/>
<br/>
"We found three plant personnel who knew the duct ways and gave them iodine pills and every bit of protection we had and sent them inside to manually drain the tanks," Boris said heavily, staring down into his vodka glass.<br/>
<br/>
"Are they...?" Glukhov trailed off.<br/>
<br/>
"So far they are hanging on," Boris shrugged, not bringing his eyes up. "We sent them immediately to the Moscow hospital, told the staff to start them on Iodine IV drips, immediately got them out of the clothing, shaved their heads and everywhere else so nothing would cling onto the hair.<br/>
<br/>
The staff said it saved their lives, but there's no guarantee they'll make it.</p><p>The doctors think they are over the worst of it, but it's hard to tell with radiation sickness. Valery said there is a latency period of a few days where the patient appears to be getting better, but they are not, they are dying, and then the symptoms come back with a vengeance, sometimes after they have been discharged. They've hung on for three weeks, though, so Valery is tentatively optimistic on their chances."<br/>
<br/>
“Well... that’s good,” Glukhov offered.<br/>
<br/>
“Yeah,” Boris sighed, feeling the weight of all of the casualties of the situation.<br/>
<br/>
“So, Khomyuk shows up, arrested,” Glukhov prompted, breaking the somber silence that had fallen. “Told you about the lava, and that’s why she’s the exact opposite of shy?”<br/>
<br/>
Boris grinned, sitting up straighter.<br/>
<br/>
“That’s definitely part of it. It was more -, if you had been there, you would understand. It was <em>how</em> she did things.<br/>
<br/>
Now that I know the planet won’t blow up, it was pretty funny. She and Valery didn’t even seem to remember she was arrested and the guard who had brought her just followed them around awkwardly as they compared notes and maps and charts and whatnot.<br/>
<br/>
He didn’t know what to do. He tried a time or two to remind her she was arrested, but she literally shushed him and then refocused on whatever Valery had told her. The guard seemed rather scared of her, actually.”<br/>
<br/>
Glukhov laughed loudly as Pikalov pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation at his people.<br/>
<br/>
“Eventually, I talked the guard into releasing her, she obviously wasn’t a threat and she obviously wasn’t going anywhere. She quite literally did not notice the difference.<br/>
<br/>
Then, a week later, she was arrested by the KGB and <em>Valery</em> was the one to get her out.”<br/>
<br/>
"What?" demanded Glukhov, his laughter cutting off as he leaned forward in disbelief.<br/>
<br/>
“Valera is an <em>idiot</em>,” Boris said firmly. “This is less than a week after he met her, mind you. Those two instantly hit it off, which is terrible for my stress levels.<br/>
<br/>
Anyway, a few days after she arrived, he found her in an unmonitored room and said, ‘I’m being watched by the secret police so I can’t, but I need you to duck the police and go to the Moscow hospital number six and find out how this happened so we can make sure it doesn’t happen again’, and she said ‘ok’ and left!”<br/>
<br/>
Glukhov’s mouth dropped open in amazement, while Pikalov looked on in resigned acceptance as if he should have expected that from both of them.<br/>
<br/>
“I was so angry,” Boris shook his head as he remembered, “but that absolute brat of a scientist was smart enough to tell me while we went on a morning walk, and then immediately beelined back to where we were monitored by the KGB so I couldn't continue to yell at him.<br/>
<br/>
I had to content myself with glaring at him while he worked on his calculations and sent me these wide-eyed, sad 'don't be mad at me' looks. I didn't even get to yell at him for it because by the time we were unmonitored it just felt mean!"<br/>
<br/>
The two men laughed, but there expressions were sympathetic.<br/>
<br/>
"Being the political overseer is my secondary position here,” Boris confided in exasperation. “My real job is to try to keep those two scientists from getting themselves killed, and it is a full time responsibility.<br/>
<br/>
If it’s not one of them, it’s the other! Valery was finally more or less behaving, so of course that is Ulana’s cue to cause me heart attacks.<br/>
<br/>
When Valera told me of the idiotic mission he sent her on, I had incorrectly assumed that since she is a certifiable genius, she would know to be discreet.”<br/>
<br/>
Boris rolled his eyes to the ceiling as the other two stared at him, invested in the story.<br/>
<br/>
“No,” Boris said, annoyed, “of course not. She is essentially Valery stuck in pain-in-the-ass mode at all times.<br/>
<br/>
No, she goes to the hospital and informs them she was assisting in to the Chernobyl situation, which was true, even though she neglected to mention she had to get herself arrested to receive that order.</p><p>She also said that she had been sent to investigate the cause of the disaster, which was technically correct, but definitely not true!<br/>
<br/>
The staff assumed she meant the Kremlin had sent her in, which is what she implied, not that the scientist that was called in to answer the Kremlin’s questions sent her on a mission to gather state secrets.”<br/>
<br/>
Boris took another drink as he remembered the stress that revelation had brought him.<br/>
<br/>
“The hospital staff gave her the run of the place, she did her interviews, and then a few days later, they mentioned her in their updates to the Kremlin... it went well, as you might imagine. They arrested her, thankfully they did not hurt her, but they had no intention of letting her go.”<br/>
<br/>
Boris let out a heavy sigh.<br/>
<br/>
“I found out the next morning and began diplomatically trying to get her out.</p><p>Valery and I were at the Kremlin to give the report the water tanks had been emptied and I made the stupid mistake of telling Valery she had been arrested and I was working on getting her out before we went in to the meeting.<br/>
<br/>
The meeting ends, and he runs out after Charkov, stops him in the middle of the hallway telling him Valery’s associate had been arrested and he wanted to know why and he wanted to know why he and I were being followed by the secret police.”<br/>
<br/>
He glanced up at the avidly listening men, an annoyed expression sneaking onto his face as he remembered the conversation.<br/>
<br/>
“The chairman played his usual game, the KGB don’t hurt people, everyone is followed, the KGB is a circle of accountability, blah blah blah. Valery announced he couldn’t do it without her and he would take personal responsibility for her, so Charkov authorized releasing her.<br/>
<br/>
The very first thing he did when he got her out of that cell was send her back to the hospital,” Boris said, his exasperation a physical force. “And yet again, her answer was, ‘absolutely, I’m on my way’.”<br/>
<br/>
“That lady has a spine of steel,” Glukhov muttered, impressed.<br/>
<br/>
“Yeah,” Boris agreed, “and it gives me stomach ulcers. So he sends her back, but Valery tracked down the energy commission chairman when I wasn’t looking and managed to convince him she was gathering data for the trials of Dylotov, Bryukhanov, and Formin, and the man gave her paperwork proclaiming she could have access to the documents and people she wanted.”<br/>
<br/>
“How in the world?” Pikalov asked faintly.<br/>
<br/>
“Right?” Boris demanded, sounding vindicated. “<em>Anyway</em>, so then we come back, greet the miners. Less than a week later Valery’s telling a colonel and the Kremlin to metaphorically fuck themselves, and breaking into Charkov's office and who knows what else.</p><p>I swear they need a <em>team</em> of babysitters. It is too much for one person to be able to handle to try to keep them both out of jail at the same time.”<br/>
<br/>
"You deserve a medal, my friend," Pikalov said seriously, pouring Boris another shot of vodka.<br/>
<br/>
“You deserve <em>all</em> of the medals,” Glukhov said in wide eyed shock. “My general stance is that government officials haven’t worked a day in their life, but I think understand now.</p><p>I found it confusing that work got done when no official ever seems to do anything, but it’s because you are single handedly doing the work of everyone in the entire government as you try to corral those two.”<br/>
<br/>
“They’re going to kill me,” Boris grumbled, throwing back the vodka the General had poured him. “Keeping them alive is a nightmare, and I will be <em>extremely displeased</em> with anyone who tells Valera the men were there.<br/>
<br/>
If they make that idiot kill himself through the sheer force of his embarrassment, heads will <em>roll</em>. I have worked too hard to keep him alive and breathing for it to be messed up now.”<br/>
<br/>
“We’ll spread the word,” Glukhov promised as he sat back in his chair, still shaking his head in amazement as he surveyed Boris.<br/>
<br/>
“Good,” Boris said, hauling himself to his feet. “I’ll be holding both of you responsible as well if anyone tells him,” he told them, only partially teasing, and they both quirked amused grins that told him they understood he was serious under the light tone.<br/>
<br/>
Boris set his glass down on the table, rubbing a hand over his face as he turned to the door.<br/>
<br/>
“These have been the longest twenty eight days of my <em>life</em>,” he complained to no one in particular as he reached for the doorknob, hearing both of the men behind him snort loudly.</p><p>He paid them no mind, making his way to his own bed with a single minded determination that could not be interrupted for anything short of another reactor exploding.<br/>
<br/>
He had passed on the message. His part was done. His bed awaited.</p><p>Tomorrow, they would do the impossible, but for tonight, he would <em>sleep</em>.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you for reading, I'd love to hear what you think!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. May 30, 1986</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Boris pinched the bridge of his nose with a heavy sigh and felt Glukhov pat his shoulder with a half amused, half sympathetic hand.</p><p> </p><p>Boris shook his head, wishing there were a way to pull the bold stupidity out of Valery's personality, or at least dampen it slightly.</p><p> </p><p>He could see the man through the window of the building, slashing an emphatic arm through the air as he continued to argue with the men he should not be arguing with.</p><p> </p><p>Boris sighed again.</p><p> </p><p>By mutual agreement, Pikalov, Boris, Valery, and Glukhov had decided to continue the transparent leadership they had adopted, and had again adjusted the announcement system so that another option was added. Rather than broadcasting through the entire compound, a new switch was added that routed the call's audio to one specific speaker, and anyone who was interested could listen to the update.</p><p> </p><p>Valery was on a call with a Kremlin sub-committee, and it was not going well. The dozens of miners and soldiers who had showed up to listen looked worriedly between the outraged scientist in the window and the resigned and exasperated fixer standing next to them.</p><p> </p><p>Things had been civil for all of twenty minutes before Valery had disputed a point and had refused to back down ever since.</p><p> </p><p>"Forgive me, comrade, I apologize," Valery cut the man off in a tone that stated the exact opposite intention of his words. "I believe I incorrectly conveyed the severity of my findings."</p><p> </p><p>Valery met Boris' eyes out the window, and Boris sent his friend a dark glare at the tone he had been arguing with.</p><p> </p><p>Valery nodded and took a deep breath, trying to reign in his frustration, and when he spoke again, it was with a much more respectful tone.</p><p> </p><p>"I am sorry, I am worried and did not remember that you have all been trained in many important areas, but they are not nuclear physics and you would not have the automatic realization a physicist would. May I please restate the problem with that in mind?"</p><p> </p><p>There was a pause, but the tension eased, and the deputy facilitating the meeting allowed the interruption with far more grace than the previous allowances.</p><p> </p><p>Once calm, it only took Valery another five minutes to convey the urgency of the situation, and they approved the request by unanimous acceptance before moving on to the other topics of the day.</p><p> </p><p>When the meeting was over, Valery exited the building, making his way to where Boris was standing next to Pikalov and Glukhov, and looked embarrassed at the reminder that other people had been listening.</p><p> </p><p>The workers sent him fond smiles before they broke off into side conversations to discuss what the development would mean for them all.</p><p> </p><p>"Well done, Valera," Boris said, patting the suddenly shy man on the back with a warm smile. "Excellent work, just next time, if you could try your diplomatic approach from the start and not give me a heart attack? I'd appreciate it if you didn't get the most important man here dragged away by the police."</p><p> </p><p>Valery cocked his head in confusion, some of the bashfulness falling way as he studied his friend.</p><p> </p><p>"I did nothing that would have had you taken by the police," he said, sounding bewildered.</p><p> </p><p>Boris stared at him, equally as befuddled as the scientist staring at him.</p><p> </p><p>"Valery," he said after a moment, in long suffering exasperation, "I was talking about <em>you</em>. You're the brains of the operation, I'm just the political lackey who does the leg work, no one else can do what you do, anyone could do what I do."</p><p> </p><p>"Oh my <em>fucking</em> god!" Glukhov exclaimed, reminding the pair they weren't the only two in the nearby area. "What the fuck is wrong with you two? Where do these self-worth issues even come from?</p><p> </p><p>Neither of you are blind, and neither of you are stupid, and yet you're both spouting off the most idiotic things I've ever heard in my life! How could either of you think you're not important, you absolute morons?"</p><p> </p><p>He looked between them, and the two men stared at him in confused shock. He rolled his eyes dramatically, visibly gathering his patience.</p><p> </p><p>"Valery," he started in long-suffering exasperation. "Literally no one in the world could do what you do. That is a proven fact, so you can shut up about it. They brought in another scientist, he wasn't nearly as good as our scientist. He was an idiot. Everyone except you and that Ulana lady is an idiot."</p><p> </p><p>Valery opened his mouth to argue, but Glukhov shot him a scolding glare.</p><p> </p><p>"No, shut up," he commanded, and Valery shut his mouth. "You're important. You're essential, we could not do this without you, and <em>whatever</em> it is that caused this self-doubt doesn't change that.</p><p> </p><p>You're important to us and you're just going to have to learn to live with that."</p><p> </p><p>Valery blushed, but didn't say anything, looking embarrassed, and Glukhov pat his cheek fondly.</p><p> </p><p>"Now, you," he continued, turning to face Boris. "You are also an idiot, so shut up. You are important, why do you think otherwise? Who did this to you two? I would like to have a talk with them.</p><p> </p><p>You are important. You are needed. You are our fixer, and we will accept no one else.</p><p> </p><p>It is <em>not</em> true that anyone can do what you do, because no other political overseer they send would have the spine to look the Kremlin in the eye and tell them to fuck themselves. You are important to us, and you are our fixer and we need you, deal with it."</p><p> </p><p>He rolled his eyes at Boris' speechlessness, but he smiled fondly and pat his shoulder before moving on.</p><p> </p><p>"In case anyone was wondering," he announced teasingly to the crowd, "I am also important."</p><p> </p><p>The men around him laughed, some of the serious atmosphere falling away.</p><p> </p><p>"I am important, you are all important. We would notice if any of you fucking shitheads didn't show up tomorrow, and we would tell each other how you were a stupid idiot and we need you until you came back."</p><p> </p><p>His statement sent another wave of laughter through the men, and he turned his smile to General Colonel Pikalov.</p><p> </p><p>"General, do you also have self-worth issues?" he asked, a teasing glint in his eyes.</p><p> </p><p>"No," Pikalov said confidently, "I know I'm the star of this operation. You idiots wouldn't last one day without me."</p><p> </p><p>Glukhov laughed brightly, nodding his agreement.</p><p> </p><p>"At least one of the idiots in charge understands his own importance," he declared to his men.</p><p> </p><p>The crowd laughed and shouted their agreements.</p><p> </p><p>"Soldiers," Glukhov announced loudly, quieting the heckling comments that had broken out. "You dumbasses are important. We need you here, don't go thinking you're some inconsequential grunt.</p><p> </p><p>You may have been before you came, but from the second you stepped into this hellhole, you became one of the most important men on the planet.</p><p> </p><p>Miners, you fuckers should already understand your worth, but just in case any of you are feeling <em>particularly</em> stupid today, you fuckers are important. I will forgive this idiocy from our fixer and our scientist, because they are both morons about these kinds of things, but I expect better from <em>you</em>. Am I understood?"</p><p> </p><p>"Yeah!" the miners chorused loudly, laughing and cheering through their response.</p><p> </p><p>"Soldiers, you are <em>important</em>, am I understood?"</p><p> </p><p>"Yes, sir!" the soldiers responded in perfect unison.</p><p> </p><p>"General, you are important, am I understood?"</p><p> </p><p>Pikalov laughed brightly, but nodded.</p><p> </p><p>"Yes," he said firmly, eyes bright with amusement.</p><p> </p><p>"Fixer, Scientist, you - are - <em>important</em>. Am I understood?"</p><p> </p><p>Valery blushed brighter, dropping his eyes to the floor, but gave a small, jerking nod of agreement that had Glukhov grinning fondly at the man.</p><p> </p><p>Boris met his eyes, a slight smile tugging at his lips, and he gave one firm nod, and Glukhov returned it, satisfied.</p><p> </p><p>"Good," he said. "Idiots. Morons, the both of you. You're both tied for the most important man in the world, and you seem to think any child off the street could do what you do.</p><p> </p><p>Because you both think that, you are also tied for stupidest man in the world. Shut up and grow some self-worth, or I will be forced to remind you daily, and I'm honestly not sure Valery could handle the embarrassment."</p><p> </p><p>Boris grinned at his blushing best friend, agreeing with the assessment.</p><p> </p><p>Glukhov's confidence in what he was saying was convincing, the crowd’s emphatic agreement even more so, and Boris found himself starting to believe that maybe the man was right, maybe Boris Shcherbina did matter.</p><p> </p><p>/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/</p><p> </p><p>“Do you think we’ll ever see them again?” Valery asked sadly, watching the last glimpse of the miner’s bus disappear from view four weeks later.</p><p> </p><p>“No,” Boris said with a heavy sigh, putting an arm over Valery’s shoulder and pulling him into a comforting side hug. “I don’t, but I do think that we did the impossible here, and we are the reason they’ll get to live to see their next birthdays. It will have to be enough.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah,” Valery agreed, but some of the despondency had fallen away from his tone. “I guess it will.”</p><p> </p><p>Boris let that sentence stand for a moment, trying to accept that he would never again see the miners he had accidentally befriended.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, we haven’t met our quota for miracles yet today,” Boris said with a teasing undertone in his voice. “The German police robot is supposed to get here this afternoon, let’s go make sure everything is set up.”</p><p> </p><p>Valery quirked a grin, letting Boris’ arm slip off his shoulders as they made their way to their make-shift command post.</p><p> </p><p>“And we’re off to do the impossible,” he noted wryly.</p><p> </p><p>“For the third time this week,” Boris agreed with a grin, making the scientist laugh.</p><p> </p><p>The miners may be gone, the soldiers were soon to be redistributed throughout the State, and General Pikalov had already been reassigned, but at least Boris would have his scientist until the end of the line.</p><p> </p><p>Boris wasn't selfish, one friend was all he really needed, and there was no better friend in the world than Valery Legasov.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you for reading!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. April 20, 1988</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Valery looked up in surprise when he heard a key turn in his front door, admitting a man Valery knew by face, but not name.</p><p> </p><p>“Hello,” Valery greeted questioningly, standing from the table and walking closer to the man as the man sent him a dark glare.</p><p> </p><p>“Orders,” he said shortly. “You’re being moved.”</p><p> </p><p>“Within the city?” Valery asked. “Am I moving to a different lab position as well?”</p><p> </p><p>“You’ll be working in the mines,” the guard sneered.</p><p> </p><p>Valerie sighed.</p><p> </p><p>“Will I be working in or working for?" he asked, resigned and tired and not overly invested in the answer.</p><p> </p><p>“You’ll be the mine overseer," the man informed him. “I’m told the work is far beneath a nuclear physicist such as yourself, so I guess it’s been long enough you’re no longer protected by the spotlight.”</p><p> </p><p>Valery sighed again.</p><p> </p><p>“Will I be permitted to bring my cat?” he asked despondently.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, and you’ll want to, too,” the man jeered. “I hear the mine food is truly terrible, might want to bring your own rations.”</p><p> </p><p>Valery pursed his lips but didn’t say anything.</p><p> </p><p>“You’ll be moving tomorrow morning at eight, have everything packed by then.”</p><p> </p><p>“Alright,” Valery sighed his agreement, but the man had already left, sweeping out the door without waiting for an answer, knowing the scientist couldn’t refuse.</p><p> </p><p>Valery sighed again as the door shut, looking down at Sasha in despondent resignation.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, Sasha,” he said, slightly apathetically, “I guess it’s on to the next step for us.”</p><p> </p><p>She looked at him with wide eyes, waiting for him to say more.</p><p> </p><p>He shrugged and sighed again.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ve already finished the cassettes,” he told her.</p><p> </p><p>She blinked, stepping closer before she sat at his feet and looked up at him curiously.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s not the right date,” he commented.</p><p> </p><p>She eyed a roach that scurried across the corner floorboard, but decided her speaking owner was marginally more interesting and returned her gaze to him instead.</p><p> </p><p>“Who knows if I’ll find anyone in the mines with connections, though,” he said, growing more tired the longer he thought about. “Not to mention willingness to commit treason.”</p><p> </p><p>He lapsed into silence, forcing his apathetic brain into action, considering the pros and cons of leaving them in the agreed upon meeting spot.</p><p> </p><p>He wondered idly if he would be sent to the mine Dyatlov was working in.</p><p> </p><p>He looked out the window.</p><p> </p><p>Maybe he’d be working in the mine despite what the man had said, his untold prison sentence having finally arrived.</p><p> </p><p>“Well,” he decided aloud to Sasha, “if I’m going to prison anyway, I might as well earn it.”</p><p> </p><p>He moved to his kitchen table and bundled up the finished tapes, wrapping them in a nondescript newspaper.</p><p> </p><p>Hopefully Nadia would still find them, even though he put them there several weeks earlier than planned. Surely she would know to check when he did not arrive promptly at eight the next morning...</p><p> </p><p>He shrugged to himself, carefully setting them under an empty container in his trash. It was his best shot, and that was all he could do.</p><p> </p><p>He meandered out to the trash bins, in no particular hurry, holding up the pail when the agent assigned to watch him threw a sharp glance his way.</p><p> </p><p>The agent nodded, relaxing back into his seat, and Valery made his way through the alley, quickly shoving the tapes in the vent and dropping the trash in the bin.</p><p> </p><p> As he made his way back inside, he wondered what they would tell his coworkers. Maybe that he had quit. Maybe that he had died.</p><p> </p><p>Many of them were fond of him even though it had been implied they should leave him in his office without engaging. He even had a small group of people he would call friends.</p><p> </p><p>People who lifted the pall of misery that laid across his shoulders every time they came to his office to visit.</p><p> </p><p>He stared blankly at his table, conjuring up the faces of Nadia, Matvey, Zhanna, Nikolai, and Darya. He tried not to let the emotion rise as he added them to the list of people he’d never get to see again. He hadn’t thought it would get any longer.</p><p> </p><p>He wondered if the KGB had noticed his increased happiness and ripped him away because he had dared to make connections.</p><p> </p><p>He swallowed hard and refocused on packing. He did not have much, but he was exhausted and miserable, and the task seemed insurmountable.</p><p> </p><p>He got to work though, as he always did when presented with an insurmountable challenge, and a little less than an hour before he was set to leave he closed his suitcase, declaring himself as packed as he would be.</p><p> </p><p>Sasha had watched curiously, confused as to why he was not moving through his usual nightly routine. She followed him from room to room, growing slightly concerned when he gathered up all of her toys and tucked them into another bag, followed quickly by her food and water dish, and her emptied and cleaned litter box.</p><p> </p><p>The front door swung open, the agent not bothering to knock, and Valery’s hand darted out to catch Sasha before she could flee, shoving her quickly inside her carrier and latching the door. She wasn’t pleased, but at least he could bring her.</p><p> </p><p>“Ready?” the KGB agent grunted, his eyes holding a clear the warning that the answer should be ‘yes’.</p><p> </p><p>“I am,” Valery said, gesturing to the two suitcases and cat carrier. Sasha had almost as many things as he did, and he didn’t know if that made him want to laugh or cry.</p><p> </p><p>He did neither, instead he solemnly picked up both suitcases, carefully settled Sasha’s carrier on top, and followed the agent down the stairs and out the building, not bothering to look at the apartment he was leaving behind.</p><p> </p><p>The agent opened the trunk, and Valery slid both suitcases inside, opting to keep Sasha’s carrier with him for the journey.</p><p> </p><p>He looked to the agent for direction on where he was to sit, and the agent nodded to the back, a clear indication that he did not intend to communicate or connect with Valery on the way to wherever they went.</p><p> </p><p>Just as well. The agent would either be miserable company, or he would be someone else Valery had to add to his list, and he wasn’t entirely sure he would be able to handle that with his current levels of exhausted depression.</p><p> </p><p>“It’ll be thirteen hours today,” the man informed him shortly, starting the car as Valery nodded his understanding and shifted slightly to settle in.</p><p> </p><p>The agent nodded his approval and pulled away, leaving Valery’s life behind without a backwards glance.</p><p> </p><p>Valery gazed out the window, watching the scenery pass by bringing out more life in him than he had been able to muster in months. He had forgotten there was a world outside his KGB cage.</p><p> </p><p>He had forgotten that the cage was his punishment for saving every single person they passed. In the light of day that glinted off the happy faces of children playing, it suddenly felt worth it.</p><p> </p><p>A few hours in, when she had calmed, he pulled Sasha out of her carrier to sit on his lap, idly petting her as he watched the forest they drove through.</p><p> </p><p>The living forest that <em>he</em> had saved. He and <em>Boris</em>, and the miners, and Ulana, and everyone else involved had saved. He was on his way to prison, but it was beginning to feel like a victory lap.</p><p> </p><p>Everything they passed shredded a small piece of his despair, replacing it with a feeling of victory deep in his chest. Yes, his life was horrible. Depressing. Meaningless. Empty. But it hadn’t been before. It was that way because he had <em>done</em> the impossible, first triumphing over Chernobyl, and then returning to the godforsaken place to do it again, that time over the system’s flaws the radioactive city represented.</p><p> </p><p>He had succeeded. They had redesigned control rods in every single reactor in the Soviet Union. Not because of him, of course, they claimed. Rather, it was proof of the Soviet’s efficiency, visual proof of their constant improvement.</p><p> </p><p>He was given not even a whisper of credit, but the scientists knew. They wouldn’t say his name, but they knew, he knew they did. Enough of them had been at the trial and word spread as it always had in the Soviet Union, quickly and secretly.</p><p> </p><p>Scientists had always had a certain degree of separation from the control of the state.</p><p> </p><p>Over all, as a whole, the lot of them were more interested in staying in their labs to do more research than rubbing elbows to rise above their stations. To most of them, the promotion from scientist to chairman sounded like a punishment, and they had little to no desire to waste time they could be learning by pointlessly rubbing elbows and giving compliments no one believed.</p><p> </p><p>Because of the disconnect, word spread faster and more accurately amongst scientists.</p><p> </p><p>For most scientists, the state and the state’s secrets were a society they existed in rather than one they actively furthered, and there were secrets passed in the interest of sharing knowledge so often that a few of the codes were standardized through unspoken agreement.</p><p> </p><p>Each science had their own code. Physicists and chemists spoke of the unspeakable through elements. Atomic numbers to convey the legitimate statistics rather than the propaganda reports, discussions of noble gasses as a thin shield for the real discussion of the chairmen.</p><p> </p><p>Biologists used what they knew, discussions of <em>the Russian Bear</em> for the government official they were discussing, comments on disruptions of the ecosystem and their root causes when new policies came out.</p><p> </p><p>Engineers discussed details in terms of signals and systems, geologists in talks of tectonic plates shifting and warnings of upcoming earthquakes.</p><p> </p><p>Each discipline had their own code, and Valery was sure the scientists had spread through the grapevine what he had said at the trial. He saw little pieces of evidence when he thought to look.</p><p> </p><p>Word was spread through the research lab to be kind to him, something he hadn’t been sure of until Nadia had confided, deep in the woods on a lunch walk and safely out of range of the KGB bugs, that she had received a call from a friend in Kiev that Nadia’s lab was scheduled to receive a single shipment of Vanadium, and would she look after it to ensure none of the elements that were packaged with it for the shipment reacted badly?</p><p> </p><p>He had chuckled that his name had apparently circulated enough in those first days after the trial that he had been added to the standard. She laughingly informed him that every physicist in the Union knew that Vanadium actually meant Valery Legasov.</p><p> </p><p>He pushed down the small smile trying to spread across his face, certain the driver would find a way to remove it if he saw.</p><p> </p><p>It was odd. Valery knew this agent. He had seen him almost every day for the past year and a half. The man had been assigned to watch him as he walked home and most of the night afterward. The guard shifted at six am, giving them time to get situated and share reports before he went to work.</p><p> </p><p>He had seen the man almost every day for more than a year, and he didn’t know his name. He did know the man hated him, though, that was abundantly clear with every interaction.</p><p> </p><p>They stopped for food, the meal just as quiet as the journey, the silence only broken when Valery asked to get into his bag to get Sasha food.</p><p> </p><p>The agent grudgingly allowed it, muttering about not wanting to listen to her yowling, and they were off again.</p><p> </p><p>They stopped for the night, just as quietly aloof, then packed up and started off again the next morning.</p><p> </p><p>They drove another full day and an additional half before the agent announced they were getting close.</p><p> </p><p>The passing sign announced they were nearing Novosibirsk Oblast. Valery had never been before, and he looked around curiously.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re not staying in the city,” the agent informed him disdainfully, watching Valery’s interested eyes as he took in the shops and buildings they passed by.</p><p> </p><p>Valery turned an inquiring look to the man, but didn’t verbalize the question.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re going way out in the mines,” the agent sneered without further prompting, sounding vindictively excited about the prospect. “It’s so cold and so miserable, they’re not even making me and my team watch you anymore.</p><p> </p><p>They’ll have a checkpoint on the only way in or out of the mine village and you’ll get the punishment you deserve without making me suffer through it too. It’s going to be great.”</p><p> </p><p>Valery was less confident in that assessment, but the idea of not having a constant guard was enticing.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re just going to be doing even more boring office work than you already were,” the guard went on, cruel humor dancing in his eyes. “You’ll go nuts, not doing anything. No way to get any more of your precious research. No real job, just the useless overseer that doesn’t have any responsibilities except to sit in his office and do grunt paperwork all day. It’s meaningless. It’s useless. It’s perfect.”</p><p> </p><p>Valery pursed his lips unhappily. He had always rebelled against mental stagnation. It would be better than working in the prison mines, but not the position he had been hoping for. Not that he wanted power or recognition, but he did want to <em>do</em> something.</p><p> </p><p>It would be better than being tortured, he reminded himself, which was a possibility he had considered they were leading to on the long, silent journey.</p><p> </p><p>They continued in silence, only broken by the driver pointing out the checkpoint they went through, informing Valery he would be questioned anytime he dared to pass through it, and he would need to have a legitimate reason to leave.</p><p> </p><p>Valery nodded silently, and they continued on for another three hours before they entered the outer limits of the small city they drove into. Barely ten minutes later they arrived at a small apartment building, old, but well kept.</p><p> </p><p>The agent watched dispassionately as Valery struggled with both his bags and the carrier, leading them up a staircase and turning right, leading the way to apartment ‘one two three’.</p><p> </p><p>Valery looked at the number distastefully, wondering if it was chosen purposefully as a reminder of the moment his life ceased to be his own, or if fate was just cruel. Both were equally likely.</p><p> </p><p>“Home, sweet home,” the agent jeered, looking around in giddy excitement as Valery followed him in.</p><p> </p><p>“Small, dingy, pathetic,” the man stated, then made a show of turning to the scientist.</p><p> </p><p>“Just like you!” he commented in mock surprise.</p><p> </p><p>Valery looked around the apartment. It was small, but to Valery it seemed cozy. His previous residence had been too large, the empty rooms driving home how alone he was.</p><p> </p><p>The apartment had a kitchen that melted into the living room, a bathroom, a bedroom, and a small balcony. It was perfect. It even had a fireplace in addition to the radiators, and Valery knew that was a sign of how cold it would get in the winter, but he found himself looking forward to reading books in front of it as the nights grew longer.</p><p> </p><p>As with his previous residence, the apartment was already furnished. This time, instead of the stark corners and efficient surfaces, the decor was old, but homey.</p><p> </p><p>The living room held an overstuffed armchair and a small upholstered couch. The kitchen table was rounded, the chairs a warm, honey-colored wood.</p><p> </p><p>Even better than the other furniture, the far wall was taken up by a floor to ceiling bookshelf built into the wall. It was empty, but Valery’s eyes gleamed at the thought of filling it.</p><p> </p><p>He opened the door to the bedroom, squeezing his suitcases through the doorway.</p><p> </p><p>The bed looked comfortable enough, a pleasant green bedspread laying on top, a chest of drawers beside it, with a lamp and nightstand on the other side.</p><p> </p><p>There was another door, presumably the closet, but far better than that was the large window, letting light stream in and giving the room an inviting glow.</p><p> </p><p>The window looked out the back of the building to a lush green hill that sprawled into a patch of woods that extended out of sight.</p><p> </p><p>He set his bags down and erased all signs of his pleasure off his face as he let Sasha out of her carrier and then slipped out of the bedroom, closing the door behind him to keep her in.</p><p> </p><p>He poked his head into the bathroom curiously and found it more than adequate.</p><p> </p><p>Another small window let natural light in, the shower had a curtain on it, and the mirror on the medicine cabinet was clean and uncracked, unlike his last apartment.</p><p> </p><p>The toilet, sink, counter, and shower all looked clean and well cared for, even if they were far from stylish, and he tried to push down his growing excitement. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.</p><p> </p><p>He crafted a disappointed expression, wandering back into the kitchen where the agent stood in front of the pantry, eagerly awaiting his reaction.</p><p> </p><p>“What do you think?” the man asked, a malicious glint in his eyes.</p><p> </p><p>Valery forced a look of awkward reluctance on his face followed by an obviously fake smile.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s...” he pretended to struggle to find a word before he landed on “fine,” with a disappointed tinge.</p><p> </p><p>The man’s smile grew, dropping the key into his hand.</p><p> </p><p>“Home, sweet home,” he repeated with a spiteful smile.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah...” Valery agreed with a sigh, pocketing his new key.</p><p> </p><p>“Time for you to go to <em>work</em>,” the agent announced, his mood brightening by the second.</p><p> </p><p>Valery trudged after him, finding it difficult to subdue his growing excitement as he thought about his new apartment, which was so much better than the last. His work here may be boring, but he wouldn’t have a babysitter, and his apartment was perfect, and he had even gotten to bring Sasha.</p><p> </p><p>They drove for another twenty minutes out of the small town, down a long stretch of road until they came to an outpost building built into the front of the mine.</p><p> </p><p>“Your office is up here,” the agent announced, taking an immediate left as they walked in and leading them down a hallway away from the sounds of the men working in the mine below.</p><p> </p><p>They climbed a flight of stairs and made their way down a hallway, stopping at a room at the end.</p><p> </p><p>The agent pulled the door open with a flourish, mockingly bowing Valery forward to enter the room.</p><p> </p><p>“Enjoy the rest of your meaningless life,” he laughed pulling the door shut decisively instead of following him in.</p><p> </p><p>Valery turned back to the door, listening to the sound of the man’s laughter fading as he walked further away.</p><p> </p><p>He turned back to the room, glad he didn’t have to hide his honest reaction anymore.</p><p> </p><p>The office was... the office was <em>perfect</em>, he thought with a growing feeling of happiness swelling in his chest.</p><p> </p><p>There were large windows letting light stream in, looking down at the mine’s front entrance and the hills and forests around it.</p><p> </p><p>The sunlight alone was more than enough to light the whole room, but he looked up to find lights in the ceiling as well as the desk lamp and the freestanding lamp that stood beside an inviting looking couch tucked into the corner, perpendicular to the window, nestled in the space between the office desk and the wall, a small coffee table arranged in front of it.</p><p> </p><p>A comfortable chair sat on the other side of the table, conveniently placed to pull in front of the desk if he had a visitor.</p><p> </p><p>His desk was large and wooden, Angara pine with a warm finish, and his smile grew as he took it in.</p><p> </p><p>He had told Boris once that Angara was his favorite kind of wood for furniture, and his friend had laughed heartily, informing him that in the construction business, Angara was known for being extremely durable, reliable, and dense, all words Boris would use to describe Valery.</p><p> </p><p>He chuckled at the memory, for once able to remember his time with his friend without the shooting pang of loneliness.</p><p> </p><p>A large, sturdy bookshelf stretched almost to the ceiling, wrapping around the two remaining walls, forming around the doorway into the room.</p><p> </p><p>There was a discrete radiator perfectly placed behind his desk, and another by the couch, a third in the opposite side of the room, and he was pleased to find they could each be controlled individually rather than bowing to the whim of the building manager.</p><p> </p><p>The office had obviously been previously occupied, dozens of large binders filled the shelves, a warm quilt draped over the back of the couch, a large mug sat on the coffee table, and Valery wondered if he shared the office. Maybe he and another overseer worked in shifts?</p><p> </p><p>Even if that was the case, the office was perfect. A thick rug lay in the middle, adding to the warm, inviting atmosphere, and the sunlight streaming in was a welcome change from the small dingy windows in his previous basement office.</p><p> </p><p>Valery beamed at the room, unable to believe how his luck had changed. The work might be boring and monotonous, but he would rather do it in a bright, cozy office than in the dingy closet he had been envisioning.</p><p> </p><p>His apartment was perfect, he had been able to bring Sasha, he was no longer watched around the clock, his office was everything he could want it to be, life was on the upswing, he decided.</p><p> </p><p>He happily surveyed his office one more time before he ventured back out into the hall, wondering if there was any type of cafeteria or if he should expect to bring his own food in the future.</p><p> </p><p>He found a restroom conveniently close, but no cafeteria, so he descended the stairs, crossing the entrance area to study a map hanging on the wall.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, would you look at that,” a familiar voice said, and Valery’s head shot up, whipping around to see who had spoken. It couldn’t be possible...</p><p> </p><p>But it was.</p><p> </p><p>“Looks like our order for a scientist finally came in,” Glukhov smiled, leading a crowd of smiling men.</p><p> </p><p>Valery’s mouth dropped open before a wide, beaming smile spread across his face for the first time in almost two years.</p><p> </p><p>“Glukhov?” he gasped.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s right,” the man announced, striding closer until he pulled the scientist into a tight hug that Valery eagerly returned.</p><p> </p><p>“You didn’t think your boys would leave you out in the cold, did you?” the miner asked teasingly as he pulled back, laughing at the stunned look on Valery’s face.</p><p> </p><p>“Did you really think we forgot about you?” Pyotr asked chidingly.</p><p> </p><p>“Um...” Valery trailed off, sensing that ‘yes’ was the wrong answer.</p><p> </p><p>He had held on to the memory of <em>them</em>, thinking of at least one of them almost every day since he had last seen them, but he hadn’t really thought they would remember <em>him</em> as anything more than a character in their retelling of their Chernobyl stories.</p><p> </p><p>“You are still a <em>moron</em>,” Alexey informed him fondly, pulling him for a hug of his own that Valery melted into.</p><p> </p><p>The last time he had been hugged before Glukhov’s was when he, Boris, and Ulana had hugged before walking into the trial, suspecting it would be the last they saw of each other, even if Valery hadn’t gathered the nerve to report his findings.</p><p> </p><p>Alexey’s hug broke the spell and soon the miners were all surging forward, not waiting turns, rather swarming him a whole in an enormous bear hug full of hair ruffles and shoulder pats, and he couldn’t remember a moment he had ever felt happier.</p><p> </p><p>“How?” he asked, still feeling stunned, even as the euphoria started to sink in. He would be working with <em>his boys</em>. Life wasn’t just on an upswing, it was rocketing upward. Second only to Boris and Ulana, he could think of no one he would rather spend his days with than his boys.</p><p> </p><p>“It wasn’t easy,” Glukhov smiled. “Not made any easier by our scientist doing exactly what the Kremlin should have known you’d do.”</p><p> </p><p>Valery blushed, his eyes dropping to Glukhov’s chest in his embarrassment.</p><p> </p><p>“How could they have known?” he mumbled, “I didn’t even know I was going to do that.”</p><p> </p><p>Glukhov laughed, laying a hand on Valery’s cheek and shaking his head.</p><p> </p><p>“I did,” he said confidently. “We all did. Ulana was not as closely watched as you and Fixer, which is amusing considering she is possibly even more rebellious than both of you combined.”</p><p> </p><p>Valery quirked an amused grin, agreeing with his assessment.</p><p> </p><p>“She snuck away the day before the trial, told us what you three had discovered. She said she wasn’t sure what you would do, but we informed her you would courageously and dangerously announce it to the world in the most rebellious, dramatic way possible.</p><p> </p><p>She did not believe us, but that is alright, she was busy doing all of the investigation that none of us could while we were watching you spit in the face of the Kremlin repeatedly.”</p><p> </p><p>Valery flushed brighter, making the men around him laugh.</p><p> </p><p>“She talked to us again the day after the trial,” Glukhov continued. “She told us what you did, how brave you were. She told us how proud of you she is.”</p><p> </p><p>Valery hadn’t thought his smile could grow any wider, but it somehow managed it.</p><p> </p><p>He had forgotten as he trudged through his listless, meaningless routine, how much his friends had wanted him to speak out.</p><p> </p><p>Even Boris, though he protested when Ulana brought it up, had wanted the information to be known, he just hadn’t wanted <em>Valery</em> to be the one to endanger himself by announcing it. All three of them had been quite certain it would end in a firing squad, and until the last few days, Valery had wished it had.</p><p> </p><p>He hoped his friend understood that Valery <em>had</em> to be the one to risk it all because he was the only one who could. The publicity from the Vienna trial and the continued coordination with the Kremlin gave him an authority no other scientist in the Union possessed.</p><p> </p><p>“We all knew it was exactly what you’d do, and scientist, we are proud of you, too.”</p><p> </p><p>Valery’s bashfulness reasserted itself and he smiled at his friend, but couldn’t come up with a response, making all of the men around them chuckle.</p><p> </p><p>“We made sure you hadn’t been shot, and then we got to work,” Glukhov said, picking up the story again. “Dimitri has a school friend who works in the same building as one of the KGB office buildings, and the friend was able to get us a copy of the file they had on you, and fixer, and Ulana, and the general.”</p><p> </p><p>Valery nodded, amazed they had been able to successfully coordinate such a thing.</p><p> </p><p>“They didn’t even bother writing the rest of our names down,” Glukhov smirked, “and it worked in our favor. We weren’t on the list of people you were absolutely not allowed to speak to, we weren’t on any of their lists at all. We’re not marked for surveillance, no bugs in the mines, we inconsequential to the Kremlin, the soldiers other than Pikalov, too.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m not sure the Kremlin has <em>ever</em> been more wrong than in their assessment of my boys,” Valery said, amazed at the stupidity of the men who ran their nation.</p><p> </p><p>“Right?” Glukhov asked, sounding vindicated, and making his men laugh.</p><p> </p><p>“You were under the tightest leash, so we got Ulana and Fixer out first.</p><p> </p><p>Ulana was easy, neither of them were being punished, just warned. She went back to her position at the Belorussian Institute, and Anton’s sister, Vladimir’s brother, and Oberon’s cousin all volunteered to transfer into her lab when we told them what had happened. Ulana reportedly loves the trio, they spend time on weekends and whatnot going places out of the KGB’s hearing and telling stories.”</p><p> </p><p>Valery felt some of the ever present tension fall off his shoulders in relief that at least one of his friends was not suffering. More than that, she was thriving, and it was all he had ever wanted for her.</p><p> </p><p>“Fixer is on thinner ice, but still not actually being punished, just watched closer. Sergeant Viktor arranged it somehow that Fixer would oversee an army base, reporting back to the Kremlin when necessary so the generals could stay where they were most needed. Most of the soldiers from Chernobyl are stationed there, and they are looking out for him.</p><p> </p><p>The KGB trusts the military more than the civilians, and while he is on base he is not followed or monitored. A few months ago, General Pikalov was mysteriously and conveniently assigned to the same base through some miracle Cadoc’s sister managed to pull off. I have no idea how she did it, but orders came from above, and no one has connected that it was exactly what they wanted or orchestrated by us.”</p><p> </p><p>Valery almost swayed with the force of his relief, the tremendous weight always on his shoulders <em>finally</em> falling away, and he felt more than a little light headed in his relief. His friends were ok. They were better than ok, they were surrounded by people who knew, people who understood, people who would look out for them.</p><p> </p><p>He had hoped, in his long, lonely days, and even lonelier nights, that his friends were not suffering for his actions, and it was a tremendous relief to hear that they were not.</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you,” he breathed, finding it difficult to convey how grateful he was. “<em>Thank you</em> for taking care of them.”</p><p> </p><p>"It was never even a question," Glukhov told him seriously, and Valery's smile warmed even further.</p><p> </p><p>He had not forgotten how much he loved his boys, but he was hit with a fresh reminder as a wave of affection rolled over him. Even when he had been recording the -</p><p> </p><p>Oh.</p><p> </p><p>Valery's euphoria shattered as the realization set in.</p><p> </p><p>“I -, um -,” Valery swallowed hard, his happiness draining away. “I may have endangered you all,” he admitted sadly.</p><p> </p><p>He swallowed hard, pushing down the emotion trying to rise. If he had <em>known</em>...</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you for all you have done, but you need to send me far away from all of you. I ....”</p><p> </p><p>He cast a quick glance at his worried men and then dropped his eyes to his shoes again.</p><p> </p><p>“I recorded cassettes relating everything that happened,” he admitted to his shoes. “Filled eight of them. Shared every decision, every terrible choice made by the Kremlin, every piece of necessary knowledge that was kept from us. I filled eight cassettes and gave them to a scientist in my lab who will spread them throughout the Union.</p><p> </p><p>She and I devised a plan for her to propagate them throughout, disguising them as equipment instructions or lab safety procedures and sending them to every nuclear research facility in the nation.</p><p> </p><p>They will be kept from the state for as long as possible, in hopes of spreading them further, eventually smuggling them over the border to Germany in a few years, and I cannot imagine it will go well for anyone in contact with me when the Kremlin finds out.”</p><p> </p><p>He ended with a wince, still staring at his shoes, waiting for the reaction of the men who had tried so hard to take care of him.</p><p> </p><p>Their reaction was not at all what he expected. After a moment of stunned silence, the miners around him burst into howls of laughter.</p><p> </p><p>He looked up, brow furrowing in confusion, to study them, wondering if they had been distracted by something and not heard his confession.</p><p> </p><p>“We should have known,” Glukhov guffawed, finding much more humor in the situation then Valery did. "We should have <em>known</em> that's what you were using your time to do!"</p><p> </p><p>The men around him cackled their agreement, and Valery felt himself bristle slightly at the complete and utter lack of surprise.</p><p> </p><p>"You couldn't have known," he insisted petulantly, "because I only decided to do it last month, it's not like it was something predictable."</p><p> </p><p>The men’s' hilarity redoubled, and they gasped for air as they laughed still harder.</p><p> </p><p>"Oh, yes it is," Akim told him. "We are <em>idiots</em> to not have guessed it already!"</p><p> </p><p>Valery scowled lightly at him, but the look did nothing to deter any of them.</p><p> </p><p>"He's right," Glukhov said, confident and assured and not bothered in the slightest when Valery transferred the disapproving look to him. "As for sending you away, absolutely not. Scientist, we worked way too hard to get you here just to send you away again.</p><p> </p><p>If the Kremlin find out, well, accidents happen in mines every single day, and it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve smuggled someone across the border. We’ll fake your death and get you out, but until then you are staying with us where you belong."</p><p> </p><p>"But -," Valery said, wanting so desperately to be able to agree, but unable to look past the danger he was putting them in.</p><p> </p><p>"But nothing," Glukhov insisted, the men around him nodding firmly. "We will set up some kind of alert and failsafe. We'll put a button in the lobby we can press if officials come to find you, it will ring a bell in your office and you will know to hide.</p><p> </p><p>We will set off an explosion in the mines, tell them you were running an inspection, and that will be that. We will then smuggle you out of the Union as a miner, it is much easier to smuggle out unimportant people like us than scientists and political figures."</p><p> </p><p>"You are important," Valery said sharply, sending Glukhov a hard look that had his expression softening.</p><p> </p><p>"You are correct," he acknowledged, "but the Kremlin doesn't think so."</p><p> </p><p>"The Kremlin is full of <em>idiots</em>," Valery muttered, resparking another wave of laughter.</p><p> </p><p>"You won't find any arguments here," Glukhov agreed, amused at the adamance from the scientist. </p><p> </p><p>Valery smiled, looking around the crowd at the smiling faces before Glukhov broke the silence.</p><p> </p><p>"You're staying," Glukhov said firmly, "and there won't be any arguments on that either."</p><p> </p><p>"If you're sure everyone understands the risks," Valery hedged, wanting so badly to accept Glukhov's command.</p><p> </p><p>"We do, and you are, and that's that," Glukhov announced.</p><p> </p><p>Valery smiled shyly at them, unable to express how much their dedication meant to him.</p><p> </p><p>"Come on, Scientist," Glukhov said, patting his blushing cheek fondly, "we have another surprise."</p><p> </p><p>"More?" Valery asked faintly, wondering how there could be anything that could possibly improve the situation.</p><p> </p><p>"Yep!" Akim chirped, slinging an arm over Valery's shoulders and following Glukhov to the staircase that led to Valery's new office.</p><p> </p><p>"You've grown," Valery accused the miner, narrowing his eyes.</p><p> </p><p>"Yep!" Akim agreed happily. "I was hoping you'd notice."</p><p> </p><p>"Who allowed you to get this tall?" Valery asked, appalled, much to the amusement of the miners around him.</p><p> </p><p>When the miners had left Chernobyl, Akim had been seventeen and five foot seven, and Valery had thought that was as tall as he'd get.</p><p> </p><p>Apparently not. The now-eighteen year old had shot upward since Valery had seen him last.</p><p> </p><p>"How tall are you?" Valery demanded, displeased as he realized he stood almost a full head below the man's shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>"Six one," Akim announced proudly.</p><p> </p><p>"That is not allowed," Valery scowled, but allowed himself to stay tucked in to Akim's side as they all traipsed up the stairs.</p><p> </p><p>Valery had not realized quite how much he had missed physical contact until he had it again, and he wondered if he would still be graced with hugs and arms over his shoulders after the initial excitement wore off.</p><p> </p><p>The miners were a verbally gruff crew, but they did tend to be more physically affectionate than most men Valery knew, even if it was typically in the form of back pats and congratulatory punches to the shoulder, so he was hopeful the trend would continue.</p><p> </p><p>"So," Glukhov said, stopping in front of the door. "You've already seen your office," he opened the door and ushered Valery inside, the miners gathering around the hallway without entering.</p><p> </p><p>"It is <em>perfect</em>," Valery told them all happily, surveying the room again as the sunshine gave it a warm glow.</p><p> </p><p>"Did you notice the binders on the bookshelves?" Alexey asked from the doorway, an eager excitement in his voice Valery didn't understand.</p><p> </p><p>He nodded, looking between the miners in slight confusion.</p><p> </p><p>"Yes," he confirmed, "am I sharing the office with another overseer?"</p><p> </p><p>"No," Glukhov said, his tone full of barely constrained glee. "<em>Look</em>."</p><p> </p><p>He walked to the bookshelf and hooked a finger inside one of the binders on the far side of the shelf. His finger twisted, doing something Valery couldn't see, and then he pulled it forward.</p><p> </p><p>Valery's mouth dropped open as he watched. The binder didn't come off the shelf, it wasn't a binder at all. He watched in amazement as all of the binders folded like an accordion, revealing themselves to only be multiple panels of the binders’ spines glued together to make it look like the shelf was full.</p><p> </p><p>Behind the shield was a newly revealed shelf of hidden books.</p><p> </p><p>Valery walked forward in a trance, eyes wide as he read their covers.</p><p> </p><p>Glukhov opened the other three shelves that had been obscured by binder covers, revealing even more books behind those.</p><p> </p><p>There were physics books, fiction books, magazines. The entire series of Valery’s favorite recreational author was there, along with more books Valery hadn't read before. </p><p> </p><p>He returned his awed stare to the miners, who were all beaming at him.</p><p> </p><p>"Thank you," he breathed, wishing there were words more adequate for what they had done for him.</p><p> </p><p>In the distance, a shift bell rang, and the miners glanced back toward the mine reluctantly.</p><p> </p><p>"We need to go back to work," Glukhov said reluctantly, "We'll come see you after shift, but there's one more surprise left."</p><p> </p><p>He bent to the baseboard of the bookshelf and poked at a corner until something caught and he was able to pull the entire base of the bookshelf forward like a small door.</p><p> </p><p>He let the panel swing wide as the hinge let it open past a ninety degree angle, and pulled a drawer out, picking up a piece of paper before pushing the drawer back in and shutting the hidden door with a firm click.</p><p> </p><p>"Here," he said, his smile warm and happy, handing Valery a letter.</p><p> </p><p>Valery took it, still feeling stunned, and Glukhov patted his cheek again, sent him one more fond smile, and shooed the other miners back down the hallway, shutting the door behind them.</p><p> </p><p>He listened to the sound of their playful bickering fade and eventually dropped his gaze to the letter he held in his hand. It was addressed to Glukhov.</p><p> </p><p>He cocked his head, opening it carefully as he sat down at his desk, pulling the paper out and unfolding it, distantly noting just how comfortable his chair was.</p><p> </p><p>'Valera,' he read, and his eyes filled with tears as he realized who the letter was from.</p><p> </p><p>He sniffed and wiped them away, too excited by the letter to pay them any real mind.</p><p> </p><p>'Our boys did it again,' Boris wrote on the next line. 'I don't know how they did it, but somehow they managed it.</p><p> </p><p>I won't be able to actually visit you, because my best friend is an insanely brave and courageous idiot, but they have devised a system that will allow us to write to each other as often as we want by passing letters through various different miners and soldiers so no one sticks out as suddenly sending more letters than they did before.</p><p> </p><p>Valery, what you did was <span class="u">so stupid</span> and <span class="u">idiotic</span> and <span class="u">suicidal</span>. It was also brave, and courageous, and amazing, and noble. If I were there with you, you would never hear the end of my lecture, but I am <span class="u">so</span> proud of you, Valera.</p><p> </p><p>You did what was right, and it was as brave as it was stupid, which I suppose I should have expected from you.</p><p> </p><p>I know you will be worried about it, so allow me to ease your mind and inform you that I was not harmed, I was not punished, and I was not hurt in any way because of your bravery. Apparently the stupidest genius I know informed the KGB that I had no part in your rebellion and I had no idea what you were going to say, so if I weren't so frustrated by how noble and self-sacrificing you are, I would say thank you.</p><p> </p><p>I would say thank you, but you also almost gave me a heart attack right there in the court room, so I would also say you're an idiot. Unfortunately, that is not new.</p><p> </p><p>I'm not sure if you have been able to keep up with the news, the only real information I have on what happened to you was that you were not shot. (Thank God, if you had been shot, I would have NEVER forgiven you, Valera!) Your and Ulana's stupidly brave plan worked, there are no more RBMK reactors using graphite-tipped control rods.</p><p> </p><p>Well done, my friend, I am so proud of you.</p><p> </p><p>My annoyance and frustration at the move you pulled will probably still burn for another two to five years yet, but my pride will not be extinguished in the next century. I am so proud of you. Proud of your willingness to put the good of the Soviet people above yourself, proud of your ability to show your spine of steel at the most inopportune moments. Proud that you saved the world. Again.</p><p> </p><p>On a different note, I have several updates from the soldiers. I'm sure that by now you've heard I am living on a military base with our boys, and in all honesty, it feels a bit like retirement. It is nice, relaxing. Even more so now that I have been assured you are no longer suffering.</p><p> </p><p>Almost every single one of our soldiers is here, and they have several exciting new developments.</p><p> </p><p>Viktor married Isabell last spring, and they are expecting their first child. A girl. Viktor is over the moon, you have never seen an expectant father so excited. He leaves base every weekend to visit Isabell, doting on her as if she were made of gold.</p><p> </p><p>He brought her to base a few weeks ago, and it is a shame we did not get to meet her earlier, she is everything he says she is. They will be wonderful parents.</p><p> </p><p>The couple is in complete agreement that their daughter's name will be Valeria Borya Lepedev. I hope she goes by her middle name, it's clearly the superior choice. I'm currently in the process of convincing Viktor to switch the first and middle names, so I will keep you updated on those developments as they unfold.</p><p> </p><p>Mikhail has been promoted, and he is doing his best not to preen, with only limited success. It was well deserved, though, he has somehow become even more impressive since we saw him last.</p><p> </p><p>Pikalov has come on base permanently, and he has not changed a bit. Last week he received exciting news, his oldest daughter, the one in Kiev, is pregnant with twins.</p><p> </p><p>He won't admit it, but he is absolutely going to be the grandfather that spoils them rotten. He maintains he has never coddled anyone or anything a day in his life, but you and I both know he is a teddy bear under all that gruff.</p><p> </p><p>The entire squadron of our boys received medals for valor for their work in Chernobyl. They adamantly maintain that the success was due to their fixer and scientist, so know that you are not forgotten, Valera. They all miss you fiercely, and it took extreme convincing to persuade them not to storm the lab you were working in by force.</p><p> </p><p>You are a frequent character in the stories they tell in the mess hall, and they threw a celebration when the miners passed word they had successfully had you transferred into the overseer role.</p><p> </p><p>They are all doing well, you don't need to worry about them. They are still just as ridiculous as when you saw them last, though. Idiots, the lot of them, they're always up to something.</p><p> </p><p>The boys have snuck a kitten on base that they think I don't know about, and I can't decide if it would be funnier to let them continue believing I don't know it is there or if I should casually announce it at a meeting to laugh at their faces. What do you think, my friend?</p><p> </p><p>In the last letter I received from Ulana, she told me she is being sent to a research conference to speak on her findings of her most recent research, but she will be writing you a letter the day she gets back, so you can expect that in about a week or so.</p><p> </p><p>I miss you, my friend, every single day. I am looking forward to receiving your letter and hearing how you have been.</p><p> </p><p>Your fixer,</p><p>Borja'</p><p> </p><p>Valery stared at the letter, not bothering to stop the overjoyed tears that fell down his cheeks, only making sure to shield the letter from getting wet.</p><p> </p><p>His life was <em>perfect</em>, he decided happily. He was with his boys, he could write to Boris and Ulana and Pikalov. He had books to read, science he could do, an amazing office, and an even better apartment. To top it all off, he had even gotten to bring his cat.</p><p> </p><p>Maybe he could bring her to work with him, he mused, resettling on the couch in a bright sunbeam to read his letter again.</p><p> </p><p>Life was <em>perfect</em>.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>And dying of radiation wasn't a thing, and they all lived happily ever after, The End! </p><p>I hope you liked it! Thank you for reading, I'd love to hear what you think!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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